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JS Boycott Culture

AL, BNP on same boat

Shakhawat Liton
The constitutional provision that does not allow an MP to remain absent from parliament for 90 consecutive sittings has compelled both Awami League and BNP lawmakers several times to return to the House.
Incumbent Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and her arch rival former premier Khaleda Zia also had to do it on several occasions to save their membership in parliament.
Ironically, both of them, when in power, strongly criticise their opponent for this practice.
Leader of the Opposition Khaleda Zia and her party deputies have, however, beaten all previous records created by Sheikh Hasina and her MPs in the eighth parliament.
Information available at the Parliament Secretariat shows the House boycott culture by opposition MPs began in the fifth parliament. The culture was infused with fresh blood in the seventh parliament with the new practice of returning to the House to save membership. Since then, the practice has been on the rise and has already reached new heights in the current parliament.
In the five-year tenure of the seventh parliament (1996-2001), the then main opposition BNP MPs used the practice once, while the main opposition AL MPs did it twice in the eighth parliament (2001-2006).
Meanwhile, the BNP-led opposition MPs have already returned to the House thrice in their bid to save their parliament membership in the three years from 2009 to March 2012.
The boycott might have hit a new record had there been no such constitutional provision against remaining absent for 90 consecutive sittings.
According to Article 67 (1) (b) of the Constitution, a member of parliament shall vacate his seat if he is absent from parliament, without leave, for 90 consecutive sittings.
"These records raise a crucial question as to what would have happened had the Constitution not had such a strict provision against House boycott," said parliamentary affairs expert Prof Nizamuddin Ahmed of pub-
lic administration at Chittagong University.
"I fear the opposition MPs would have opted for a permanent boycott of the House proceedings in that case," he added.
Ironically, every time they return, opposition MPs always claim they have joined the House proceedings to speak for the people.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Tuesday in parliament said Leader of the Opposition Khaleda Zia and her deputies had joined the parliament session only to save their membership and continue getting financial benefits as lawmakers.
She had to bear the same criticism made by former premier Khaleda Zia when Hasina returned to the House after a long boycott in the eighth parliament.
RECORDS SPEAK REALITY Information available say AL chief Hasina and her party MPs joined parliament on September 12, 2002 after remaining absent for 70 consecutive sittings since the beginning of the eighth parliament. Amid the absence of the then main opposition, the eighth parliament began its journey on October 28, 2001.
The AL MPs again started boycotting the House proceedings on January 31,2004. The boycott continued till February 2006. They returned to parliament in April 2006 after remaining absent for 72 consecutive sittings.
In the fifth parliament, the
situation was different. The main opposition AL MPs did not boycott any of the 112 sittings of the first five sessions from April 5, 1991 till April 1992.
On some political issues, they opted for a boycott of the House proceedings and remained absent in 16 of a total of 45 sittings in the sixth and seventh sessions in 1992. But they started joining parliamentary proceedings in January 1993 and did not boycott any single sitting of the next five sessions thatyear.
The party, however, started boycotting House proceedings in 1994 in the wake of a political situation. Following rigging in the parliamentary by-polls in Magura by the ruling party, the AL MPs demanded the introduction of a caretaker government system that would hold parliamentary polls. To press home their demand, they began enforcing agitation programmes on the streets along with boycotting the House.
MPs belonging to the Jatiya Party and Jamaat-e-Islami followed suit as their parties started simultaneous agitation with the AL to press home the same demand. The then opposition MPs did not return to parliament to save their membership; they resigned from the House in December 1994.
After the opposition MPs started boycotting the House proceedings, the fifth parliament had 119 more sittings without the participation of the opposition till it was
dissolved on November 24, 1995.
The House boycott culture was born in the fifth parliament. But the culture of returning to the House to save membership began in the seventh parliament. The then opposition BNP MPs started boycotting the House proceedings in July 1999 and remained absent for a consecutive 77 sittings till July 2000. Then they returned to the House to save their membership. Earlier, they boycotted 31 sittings between 1997 and 1998.
In the current ninth parliament, the BNP-led opposition lawmakers have already used the practice thrice in only three years. They joined the inaugural sitting on January 25, 2009 but opted for boycotting the House in phases.
First, they started to keep away from the House proceedings in June 2009 and continued the boycott till February 2010. Having remained absent for 64 con-secutive sittings, they returned to parliament on February 11 thatyear.
A fresh boycott began in June 2010 and did not end till March 16, 2011, by which time the opposition was out of the House for 74 consecutive sittings. It then stormed out of parliament on March 24 and started boycotting the House again.
Remaining away from at least 77 consecutive sittings, the opposition lawmakers returned to parliament's current session on March 18.