Akhtar Hossain made the remarks while speaking to journalists after a farmers’ rally and public hearing held at Monsar’s Ghat in Dauyabari, Jaldhaka upazila, Nilphamari, on Sunday (September 20) afternoon.
Parliament’s special committee on constitutional amendment was due to exchange views that day with leaders of the political parties and alliances that signed the July Charter. It was already known that several parties, including Jamaat-e-Islami and the NCP, would not be taking part.
Akhtar Hossain said the present BNP government has begun toying with the referendum. They have denied the popular verdict of the referendum. They have not yet had the courage to call the referendum illegal, but they have tried in various ways to say that they accept one part of the referendum and not another. The reality, he said, is that 70 percent of the people of Bangladesh took a position in favour of yes in the referendum and yes was victorious. Through that, he said, the country has an opportunity to emerge from the fascist structure that existed in Bangladesh for a long period.
He said it is unfortunate that the government wants to keep intact the fascist structures in the constitution. For that reason, rather than moving towards the complete change of the constitution that is needed to pass from a fascist constitutional structure to a democratic one, they want to bring forward an amendment of their own. They have already formed a committee to amend the constitution.
Explaining why his party is not taking part in the committee, the NCP leader said: they invited us. As the opposition in parliament, and when they invited the National Citizen Party individually, we said there that the National Citizen Party will not take part in the constitutional amendment committee. That is because the idea on which the amendment committee has been formed contains no reality of the July Charter or the referendum verdict, and there is no application of them in it.