More serious effort needed by the Treasury Bench

OUR simple plea to both BNP and Al is, do yourself today (BNP as the ruling party and the AL as the opposition), what you advised your opponent to do yesterday (when roles of both parties were reverse). One of the beauties of the present political situation is that both sides- BNP and the AL- have been on both sides of the aisle. They have both been in the government and in the opposition. Therefore they both know what problems exist in the smooth running of the House and also how we can solve them. So our simple advice to the present Treasury Bench is that remember what you demanded of the Treasury Bench when you were in the opposition, namely allow the opposition to speak without interruption and provide them maximum opportunity to participate in the affairs of the House. Conversely, our suggestion to the present opposition is do yourself exactly what you had advised the previous opposition to do when you were in power, namely attend parliament regardless of what the government does.

We say all this because we are tired of seeing the same old play in action again -- ruling party making things impossible for the opposition and the latter walking out of the parliament on the flimsiest of grounds.

From press reports we gather that the AL is returning to the House with plenty of questions to ask. Among them will be one dealing with the PM's accusation that the opposition was conspiring to overthrow the government and another dealing with the censor motion against Sheikh Hasina for her remarks on the graveyard of BNP founder Ziaur Rahman. Of the two we would prefer a thorough debate on the PM's conspiracy charge against the opposition as it is far more serious and has far greater implication for future politics than a debate on the other subject. As we have already commented in an earlier editorial that if there was really a conspiracy than the government is duty-bound to share information with the people so that we know who the conspirators are and isolate them from the people. If, on the other hand, it was a mere political rhetoric than it was extremely unethical, self-defeating and irresponsible on the part of the government. We had seen the previous government also using the word 'conspiracy' recklessly without ever bothering to prove what was being asserted. We had hoped that this government would show a little more maturity.

We commend the opposition for the seriousness with which they appear to be returning to the parliament. We hope they maintain that seriousness throughout.