The opposition has accused the government of discrimination for giving special allocations only to the constituencies of ruling-party members of parliament. In reply, the government said letters allocating funds to opposition MPs’ constituencies would be delivered by Tuesday. Mir Shahe Alam, state minister for local government, rural development and cooperatives, gave the assurance in parliament during question time on Monday.
On 12 October the Local Government Division gave special allocations to the constituencies of 203 ruling-party MPs. It set aside Tk 51.18 crore from Union Parishad development support for projects of the MPs’ choosing, and a further Tk 329 crore from Union Parishad transport support to the union councils within those MPs’ constituencies.
After the allocations were reported, Leader of the Opposition Shafiqur Rahman and MPs from Jamaat-e-Islami and the National Citizen Party (NCP) criticised the government. On Monday, the first day of parliament’s fourth session, NCP MP Abdullah Al Amin said in a supplementary question that funds had gone only to ruling-party MPs’ seats. “Do the union councils in opposition MPs’ constituencies not need development?” he asked.
Replying, Mir Shahe Alam said the government was not discriminating in development. Allocation letters for mosques, temples and union infrastructure in opposition MPs’ constituencies would reach the Leader of the Opposition’s office by tomorrow (Tuesday), he said, and development funds would be allocated equally to every constituency.
Separately, Speaker Hafiz Uddin Ahmed informed the House of the arrest and current situation of Gazi Nazrul Islam, MP for Satkhira-4. He said Gazi Nazrul is now in the Keraniganj Central Jail.
Opening the fourth session, the Speaker said the beauty of parliamentary democracy lay in the coexistence of differing views and paths. He urged members to seek solutions through discussion, put the national interest first, and play a responsible role in meeting people’s expectations while upholding parliamentary conventions, decorum and mutual respect.
The first day’s sitting mourned the deaths of former MPs Monowar Hossain Chowdhury and Muhammad Shafiqur Rahman, the BNP’s Salahuddin Ahmed and Abdul Hai, and former Constituent Assembly member Abu Taher Abdul Muntaqim. After a minute’s silence in their memory, State Minister for Religious Affairs Mohammad Shamim Kaiser led a prayer.
Five members were nominated to the panel of presiding officers, who chair sittings in the absence of the Speaker and Deputy Speaker: Md Shahjahan (Noakhali-4), Sarwar Jamal Nizam (Chattogram-12), Muhammad Nowshad Zamir (Panchagarh-1), Shahajahan Chowdhury (Chattogram-15) and Rasheda Begum Hira, MP for a reserved seat.
বাংলায় মূল প্রতিবেদন পড়ুন · Read the original Bengali report