Ousting AL from power isn't so easy: PM Hasina

Prime Minister and Awami League President Sheikh Hasina yesterday said it is not so easy to dislodge her party from power, referring to BNP-Jamaat's scheduled nationwide sit-in demonstration today as part of an attempt to oust the government.

"They are now saying they will wage a movement from 11 January. The most left- and right-leaning parties have also joined with them. All of them in unison from one place will oust us [from power].

"I want to say one thing: The Awami League is a party working for the people's welfare. It is not so easy to push away the Awami League from power," she said while presiding over a discussion meeting organised by her party at the Bangabandhu International Conference Centre marking the Homecoming Day of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.

Referring to 10 December last, she said they have created a great panic among the people by saying they would dislodge the Awami League government.

"Their hugely publicised 10 December rally had finally gone to Golapbagh," she said.

The prime minister said her party has proved that it can topple any party from power if those parties go to power through vote rigging and illegally.

"We have proved time and again that the Awami League can do it," she added.

Awami League General Secretary and Road Transport and Bridges Minister Obaidul Quader gave the welcome address at the event.

Awami League central executive committee members Prof Mohammad Ali Arafat and advocate Tarana Halim, Advisory Council member Prof Farzana Islam, noted actor Ramendu Majumdar, Dhaka South and North City President and General Secretary Abu Ahmed Mannafi and SM Mannan Kochi, among others, spoke in the discussion.

On 10 January 1972, Bangabandhu, the undisputed leader of the nation and supreme commander of the country's Liberation War, returned to the sacred soil of independent Bangladesh from London via New Delhi after 290 days of captivity in Pakistan jail.