Editorial
Phone call farce
We're back to square one
FIRST we raise the ethical question of making public the content of the telephone conversation of the PM and the leader of the opposition without their mutual consent. However,since the conversation is already in the public domain we feel the need to make a few comments.
We find that the entire process of establishing communication between the two leaders was handled most unprofessionally. One would have expected the staffs concerned of the PM and the leader of the opposition to have ensured the necessary preliminary coordination so that the PM's call did not go unanswered in the first instance.
Given the way the telephonic talks went we are no longer sure whether it was a good idea. May be a first round secretary level talks followed by a summit would have been a better option. While we read the quarrelsome nature of the talks, yet there would have been a positive outcome if any day after the 29th of October was accepted as the day for talks instead of the 28th, as repeatedly suggested by the BNP chief. PM's insistence on withdrawal of the hartal, though fully justified, ultimately did not produce any positive outcome.
So after all the hype, the hope for a likely resolution of the current impasse through the two leaders' meeting face to face has largely been dashed with the PM expressing her intention to have an all-party government by mid November.
We feel that the PM should have waited a bit longer for the BNP to respond to her call to sit for a dialogue after 30th October. To all appearances, the saddest part of the episode is that we are back to the point where we started from.
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