54 foreign guests to attend AL council

Fifty-four political leaders from 11 foreign countries would attend ruling Awami League's 20th national council today and tomorrow.

The 11 countries are: India, Nepal, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, Austria, Russia, China, UK, Australia, Italy and Canada.

India's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Vice-president Vinay Prabhakar Sahasrabuddhe, MP, would represent his party, while opposition party National Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad, also leader of the Opposition in Rajya Sabha, would represent his party. Communist Party of India (Marxist) leader Biman Basu would participate in the council as well.

Partha Chaterjee, education minister of West Bengal and All India Trinamool leader, Debabrata Biswas of All India Forward Bloc and leaders of other political parties of Tripura, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya and Mizoram would join the programme.

A five-member delegation, led by leader of Communist Party of China Zheng Xiaosong, would take part in the council, while former prime minister of Nepal KP Sharma Oli, also leader of the Communist Party of Nepal, would attend the event.

Among others, Canada Conservative Party leader Deepak Obhrai, Jenny Rathbone and Dilwar Ali of UK, Italy Democratic Party leader Ugo Papi, Dina Nath Dungyel of Bhutan, Ernst Graft of Austria, Sergey Zheieznyak of Russia, Mohamad Hasheem of Sri Lanka would also attend the conference.

MEDIA COVERAGE

The AL has invited around 300 journalists from different local and international media outlets to cover its 20th national council.

Mrinal Kanti Das, deputy office secretary of the party, told The Daily Star that BBC, CNN, Al Jazeera, Voice of America and other international media's Bangladesh correspondents have also been invited.

He, however, could not confirm the exact number of the media outlets as more than one person have been invited from a single media house to cover the event.

The Daily Star and the Daily Prothom Alo have not been invited.