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Hasina insists on caretaker reforms

Staff Correspondent
Leader of Ute Opposition Sheikh Hasina yesterday said the opposition parties will force the BNP-led ruling alliance to bring necessary reforms in the caretaker government system and the Election Commission.
"Reform is a must and they (government) will have to effect this,” Hasina said al a press conference when asked if her party would
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participate in the next polls without electoral reforms as demanded by the opposition.
The Awami League chief, who returned home in the early hours yesterday after a month-long foreign trip, said her party and other mainstream opposition parties are now working out a common formula on these reforms.
"We will place a common formula very soon," she said at the crowded press conference held at the party's Dhanmondi office.
Brushing aside Prime Minister Khaleda Zia's allegation that AL is conspiring to foil the next general election by boycotting it in the name of reforms of caretaker government system, Hasina said, "Awami League doesn't believe in any conspiracy."
"We believe people's verdict is the only way to go to power," she said putting a counter allegation that the BNP-led government has planned to rig the next general election through 'election engineering'.
"Sensing defeat in the next election, the ruling BNP has planned to snatch people's verdict," said the opposition leader. "They are going to appoint a party man as the caretaker government chief," she added.
The former prime minister urged the people to resist any move of BNP to rig the polls.
Asked about the prime minis-
ter's rigid stance against the electoral reforms, Hasina said, "Khaleda Zia made similar statements during the 1996 movement and she realised what is caretaker government after a mass upsurge."
"This time too she will learn what reforms are .. She has no way to escape without bringing reforms (in the caretaker government system)," said the AL chief.
The opposition leader said even the alliance partners of BNP are now saying that BNP is harbouring religious militants and has failed to govern the country.
Refuting another allegation of the prime minister that the opposition parties are tarnishing Bangladesh's image in the international arena, Hasina said, "It is not the opposition, this government is enough to tarnish country's image abroad."
"Even the government has used the national news agency to spread propaganda against my son, also involving a neighbouring country's defence minister," she said referring to a BSS report that claimed her son Sajib Wajed Joy has recently met Indian Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee in New Delhi which the Indian government has denied.
"Doesn't it tarnish the country's image?" she posed a question.
The opposition leader said the government has also blackened the country's name by issuing a false statement following a joint
letter of three influential US senators on the inquiry of the killing of former finance minister Shah AMS Kibria.
"The government claimed FBI is investigating the Kibria killing case, but the US embassy categorically denied this. Doesn't it damage our image?" she said.
The AL president accused the BNP leaders of using money from the government exchequer to organise party's union level councils.
She demanded the new pay scale for government employees be effected from the year 2002, when the prime minister and her cabinet colleagues increased their remuneration showing the reason of price hike of essentials.
Hasina was awarded the Congressional Medal of Achievement from the Philippines House of Representatives while participating at a meeting of the Association of Asian Parliamentarians for Peace in Manila.
She also attended an international conference on terrorism and democracy in Madrid and later went to Florida, USA, for treatment of her hearing debility caused by last year's grenade attack on her meeting in Dhaka.
Senior leaders of the party were present at the press conference.