Democratic norms
Democratic responsibility and democratic right are two sides of one coin. The Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) is using their democratic right by calling an unpopular hartal on June 27 this year. If you look at their performance in discharging their democratic responsibility, you might find it very difficult to justify their call for hartal. The democratic responsibility performed looks like this:
a. They have boycotted parliament on a most childish ground of seat allocation by the speaker. The whole problem was created by their party speaker without consulting the other party. As a prize, the defeated person (ex-speaker) from his own MP seat was elected from the vacated seat of his chairperson in Bogra.
b. They never participated in parliament with constructive role as the main opposition. The leader of the opposition hardly participated until she had to save her MP's position from being declared vacant as per provision of the constitution for absence of more than 90 days in a row.
c. They have not submitted any action plan to solve all the problems for which they are calling the hartal, a measure to dislocate the efforts of the government to solve these problems in the shortest possible time required.
d. A series of destabilizing activities have been noticed during the last 14 months. They have not offered any cooperation to the government to come out of these civil disorders.
e. The most sensitive issue of the trial of war criminals has received no positive support from the BNP and its allies. They stayed away ( perhaps deliberately ) from parliament when an unanimous resolution was passed to go for the trial.
f. They have politicised personal affairs to misdirect the legal course of action.
I have no reason to malign the BNP, but I want to mention that they are looking at one side of the coin.
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