Live Correspondent: Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Tuesday said Bangladesh Awami League’s key goal is to ensure welfare of the people, also stating that her party always stands by the people.Sheikh Hasina came up with the remark while speaking at an unscheduled discussion in the parliament on the 71st founding anniversary of the ruling Awami League.

“Amid the coronavirus pandemic, we have cancelled Mujib Barsho celebration and party’s founding anniversary programmes as we always give highest importance to public safety,” she said. Starting its journey from the historic Rose Garden in the Old City of Dhaka on June 23 in 1949, Awami League led the country’s war of independence in 1971 and played a strong role in all democratic movements during Pakistan and later in Bangladesh.

Every year Awami League holds various programmes to celebrate its founding anniversary. But this time it was an exception due to the deadly coronavirus outbreak. Sheikh Hasina, also the president of the Awami League, said liberation of Bangladesh is the greatest achievement of her party made through sacrifice and endurance.

“The achievement that came through sacrifices and endurance of Awami League is the country’s liberation...Today we have got a country of our own, we have got our dignity as a nation...this is our biggest achievement,” she said.“This political party, since its formation, has been working to serve humanity and people...it always speaks for the deprived people, it always struggles for establishing their rights,” she said.

But, she regretted that when Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman got the steering to drive the country forward, Mostaque-Ziaur Rahman clique brutally assassinated him. “As a result, the forward march of the country was blocked.”Sheikh Hasina said once there had been hectic efforts to erase the name of Bangabandhu from the country’s history. “But, it was not possible.”

“The truth cannot be erased...the Father of the Nation is not with us physically, but his existence remains in the hearts of Bangalees...we have to fulfill his desire…We will build hunger and poverty-free 'Golden Bengal,” she added.

Sheikh Hasina said everybody knows that people get something only when Awami League comes to power as it works for development while others tried to pull the country backward.

Describing the founding history of Awami League, Sheikh Hasina said this party always talked about the rights of people and fought in every movement, including Language Movement, to establish people's rights. She said Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman led the country to its independence while people took up arms responding to his call for independence.

Sheikh Hasina briefly described various activities of the party and the government to ease the sufferings of people due to the coronavirus outbreak. The party chief vowed to stand by the people of the country always as her party did in the past.

She said the sun of independence that had set with the defeat of Siraj-ud-Daulah at Palashi Mango Orchard once again rose with the formation of the Awami League (on June 23 in 1949 at ‘Rose Garden’ on KM Das Lane in Dhaka) as the country’s independence had been achieved under the leadership of the party.

She said the first government under independent Bangladesh was formed on April 10 in 1971 with making the Father of the Nation as the maiden President Syed Nazrul Islam as first Vice-President and Tajuddin Ahmed as the first Prime Minister of the country while the government took oath on April 17 the same year at Mujibnagar in Meherpur, a part of the Palashi Mango Orchard.

“That government had directed the Liberation War of 1971 and finally brought the victory.”Sheikh Hasina said leaders and activists of the Awami League, Chhatra League, Juba League, Swechchhasebak League and its other front and associate bodies have been working round the clock to reach the relief materials to every doorstep and join the funerals of those who died of coronavirus.

The premier said Awami League men are now engaged in planting trees on a larger scale as part of her government’s tree plantation programme across the country, marking the birth centenary of the Father of the Nation.

She recalled with respect the greatest Bengali of all time, Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, Awami League’s founding president Mawlana Abdul Hamid Khan Bhasani and general secretary Shamsul Haque and Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy.

Sheikh Hasina also recalled the contributions of the Awami League leaders and workers in all the democratic and progressive movements, and expressed her gratitude to those who sacrificed their lives. She prayed for salvation of their departed souls.

Dhaka, June-23 (campuslive24.com)//ait