Fall of BNP: a reader's view
This is in response to the letter by Ms. Nurjahan from Chittagong on January the 11th. She attributed the epic defeat of BNP to three reasons (1) Corruption (2) The issue of war criminals (3) Price hike of Commodities.
According to her the latter 2 reasons should not have influenced the elections since she feels that Sheikh Hasina too during her tenure as Prime Minister did not address the issue of the war criminals.
Ms. Nurjahan then went on to add quite confusingly that Bangabandhu pardoned the war criminals in 1972 and since the new generation of young voters are unaware of these facts, (which in fact are facts distorted) they voted for Awami League out of sheer outrage towards BNP. This indeed is a rather innovative and twisted perspective.
A great many would agree that the young voters saw through the equation with amazing clarity when they associated Jamaat e Islami the party of war criminals with BNP, and hence decided to vote against it.
As for general amnesty, I presume Ms. Nurjahan is aware that Bangabandhu never declared amnesty to the war criminals in 1972 or ever. Quite the contrary, his government had brought 36,000 war criminals to book, over 10,000 of who convicted with specific charges of war crimes, (murder, rape, loot, arson) and were incarcerated. The rest, not falling in the category, were given the pardon. Ms. Nurjahan is kindly requested to know her history first and get the facts right before pointing a finger at the young generation. One should not go out of the way to defend the morally corrupt by distorting facts of the nation's history on purpose.
Regarding the price hike factor, the trend had began at an unrelenting pace during BNP rule and lasted though their duration totally unheeded whereas Ms Nurjahan put the blame squarely & solely on the caretaker government.
I would not even go to the trouble of mentioning BNP's unlimited corruption, the nation knows it all thanks to an undaunted media, US Justice Dept, Singapore Government and so on. As I am writing this, the news came on all National TV channels that a team from US. Justice Dept and FBI has actually flown into Bangladesh to recover some 200 million us dollars (Tk. 1400 crore!!) which they say were given to a dozen or so former BNP ministers (including Arafat Rahman) as kickbacks for contracts awarded to foreign companies.
As a member of the general public I cannot even begin to fathom the depth of BNP's corruption: both financial & moral.
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