BNP Chairman Tarique Rahman on Tuesday questioned Jamaat-e-Islami leaders for not resigning from the BNP-led four-party alliance government, asking why Jamaat’s two ministers remained in office if the government was as corrupt as it is now being portrayed.
“If the four-party alliance government was corrupt, then two Jamaat leaders were ministers at the time. Why didn’t they resign then?” Tarique asked while addressing an election rally at the Mymensingh Circuit House ground in the afternoon.
Referring to recent political rhetoric, Tarique said a political party was currently using the language of a “fugitive autocrat” against the BNP.
“You must have seen in the newspapers that at this moment a political party is using the language of the autocrat who has fled, against the BNP. Just as that autocrat used to say the BNP was a champion of corruption, they are saying the same thing,” he said.
Raising a series of questions, the BNP chairman said: “From 2001 to 2006, two of their members were also in the BNP government, weren’t they? They were. So if the BNP was so bad, why didn’t those two individuals resign and leave?”
Hinting at Jamaat leaders, Tarique said they did not resign because they were part of the government and knew that then prime minister Khaleda Zia acted firmly against corruption.
“They did not resign and come out because they were in the government, and they knew very well that Khaleda Zia suppressed corruption with a firm hand,” he said. “And the party that is now making these allegations—its two members who were part of the BNP government knew very well that Khaleda Zia did not patronize corruption.”
During the 2001–2006 tenure, Jamaat-e-Islami’s then ameerMatiur Rahman Nizami and secretary general Ali Ahsan Muhammad Mujahid served as ministers in the BNP-led four-party alliance government. Nizami was initially appointed agriculture minister and later given charge of the Ministry of Industries, while Mujahid served as social welfare minister.
Tarique said international statistics showed that corruption was at a lower level during Khaleda Zia’s tenure.
“When Khaleda Zia took charge of the country in 2001, Bangladesh gradually began to come out of the clutches of severe corruption,” he said. “The fact that the two members of the party now blaming the BNP remained in the government from the first day to the last proves how big a lie they are telling about their own people.”
According to party sources, Tarique Rahman attended a representative council meeting in Mymensingh in 2004 and has now returned to the district to address the election rally. Extensive preparations were taken to turn the program into a mass gathering, with posters and banners welcoming Tarique Rahman displayed across Mymensingh city.