The Amir of Jamaat-e-Islami’s Dhaka metropolitan north and DNCC mayoral candidate, Mohammad Selim Uddin, has called for local government elections to begin with Dhaka’s two city corporations.
He said a good election in Dhaka would have an effect across the country. For that reason, the elections of city corporations whose terms have expired — including Dhaka and Chattogram — must be held first, he said, with union parishad elections to follow in stages. Otherwise, he said, it must be understood that the government is afraid to face the people’s verdict.
He made the remarks while exchanging views with journalists at the Al-Falah auditorium in Moghbazar in the capital on Sunday. Leaders of various levels of metropolitan north Jamaat were present.
Selim Uddin said that if any attempt is made to rig the local government elections, as in the national election, it will be resisted. No one should entertain any such thought, he said.
Noting the severe hardship of citizens in the capital, he said Dhaka has been turned into a rubbish dump. Waterlogging is created by even light rain, which is proof of weak city management, he said. He said people are exasperated by extortion, tender-rigging, drugs and crime. The administrators appointed by the government have failed to solve these problems, he said; they are running citizen services in the same old way. Yet if they were given three months, the picture of Dhaka could change.
Setting out various citizen-service activities in the Dhaka North City Corporation area, Selim Uddin said: “We are running many programmes, including citizen services, health and education support, employment, cleanliness, help for the poor and anti-drug campaigns — although they get little publicity.”
Selim Uddin announced that if effective measures are not taken to solve the waterlogging and rubbish problems, they will take to the streets in protest. He also demanded improved citizen services and the elimination of networks of touts.
Stressing the realisation of July’s aspirations, Selim Uddin said the government was not the main stakeholder of the July revolution but is its main beneficiary. Yet it is now prevaricating over implementing the July charter and the referendum verdict, he said. He said the spirit of July also contains the spirit of the liberation war of 1971 and of justice. There is therefore no scope to remain in government or do politics while leaving July out. If the July charter is not implemented, the BNP will have to pay a heavy price, he said.
Raising the matter of bank-share fraud by the recently resigned president Md Sahabuddin, he said: “We had asked earlier for this collaborator of fascism to be removed. But the government did not remove him. Now, however it has happened, our expectation has been fulfilled through his resignation. But our demand is that he should not be given the chance to go abroad until he has been tried. If necessary, arrangements should be made for his treatment across all the hospitals together.”
The exchange, conducted by the publicity and media secretary of Dhaka metropolitan north Jamaat, Ataur Rahman Sarkar, was also attended by the naib-e-Amir of the north, Abdur Rahman Musa; assistant secretaries Mahfuzur Rahman, Nazim Uddin Molla, Dr Fakhruddin Manik and Yasin Arafat; and working council members Hemayet Hossain and Jamal Hossain, among others.
বাংলায় মূল প্রতিবেদন পড়ুন · Read the original Bengali report