Editorial
BNP's joining JS welcome
It's high time they delivered
After a long spell of absence from the Jatiya Sangsad (JS) or national parliament, the main Opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP)'s decision to finally join the JS session is a commendable one.
It is hoped that their joining this eighth session of the JS after abstaining from the sittings for long 74 consecutive days will not be a short-lived one as it had happened in the past. We would like to believe that the BNP has not ended the boycott to merely preserve their JS seats, but to play their due role in parliament.
All the grievances and complaints the Opposition BNP lawmakers have against the Treasury Bench will hopefully be settled through discussions within parliament and not by resorting to voicing these through another long-drawn-out boycott or street agitation. However, there is nothing wrong about temporary walk-outs from the JS sessions, which is but within the purview of an active and lively parliamentary practice. But if Opposition BNP lawmakers choose to go back to their old practice of outright boycott, questions will then once again arise about their very sincerity and responsibility towards the constituents and the nation as a whole. In fact, they should now make amends for the injustice they have done through long absence in parliament by ensuring their presence in it for the rest of the parliamentary tenure.
And this would be more helpful for themselves and the general public as well, because in that event the public will benefit from a fully functional parliament. The Treasury Bench lawmakers' role in that respect will also come under closer scrutiny. And the Treasury Bench, on its part, would do well to give the opposition members time to speak and not have their motions guillotined sweepingly. People want the Treasury and the Opposition to bury the hatchet and to start cooperating to make the JS effective in the greater national interest.
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