The main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party on Wednesday said that the country currently has two sets of lawmakers as the members of 12th Jatiya Sangsad have already taken oath, while the tenure of11th JS will end on January 29.
‘The tenure of the late night parliament [11th Parliament] is till January 29. Another parliament took oath illegally on Sheikh Hasina’s order without dissolving the current parliament. Now there are two sets of illegal lawmakers in the country,’ senior joint secretary general Ruhul Kabir Rizvi said at a press conference at the party’s Naya Paltan central office.
‘The prime minister has established a ‘jungle rule’ in the country by trampling all laws, regulations, constitution and discipline with her immense power. Her statement is nothing but a collection of false and fabricated information,’ Rizvi said.
He said that the government is behaving in a way as if it is running for life with someone hot on its heels.
‘In taking oath to renew power in haste, they have buried the law and the constitution in a grave. At the moment, there are 350 members of the 11th Parliament and 298 members of the dummy 12th Parliament, in total 648 sworn lawmakers,’ he said.
Now when the president calls a session of the parliament, all the members of both the parliaments can attend it, which will be an unconstitutional act, the BNP spokesperson said.
‘This anarchy will continue until the end of the term of the 11th Parliament on January 29. This is a gross constitutional violation,’ he said.
‘Before the pre-determined polls results and vote counting were completed, the process, including gazetting the names of the dummy lawmakers, taking oath, announcing the cabinet members’ names and oath taking by the ministers, was complete just in four days,’ he added.
Referring to Clause (3) of Article 72 of the Bangladesh Constitution, he said that the term of a parliament is five years and generally it is dissolved on completion of five years from the date of its first meeting after the general elections.
‘Since the president did not dissolve the parliament, those who were members of the 11th parliament till January 29 are still members of parliament,’ he said.
Besides, the BNP has announced a two-day programme to celebrate the 88th birth anniversary of its founder Ziaur Rahman.
On Thursday, the first day of the programme, a seminar will be held at the Engineers Institution auditorium in Dhaka at 2:00pm.
On Friday, the party flag will be hoisted at BNP offices across the country before people pay their respect to the former president at Sher-e-Bangla Nagar at 11:00am.
The party’s senior joint secretary general Ruhul Kabir Rizvi announced the schedule at the press conference.
Posters and pamphlets will be published and discussions will be held by various groups affiliated with the BNP to commemorate the occasion, he said.
Born on January 19, 1936 at Bagbari in Bogura, Ziaur Rahman founded the party in 1978 and became the country’s 7th president.
Zia was assassinated by a group of army officers at Chittagong Circuit House on May 30, 1981.
