BNP making malicious statements over Rooppur power plant: Quader

Awami League (AL) General Secretary Obaidul Quader today said BNP leaders are making malicious statements over the environment-friendly Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant.

"Bangabandhu's daughter, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, is inaugurating mega projects one after another that makes the BNP leaders irritated," he said in a statement.

Quader, also the road transport and bridges minister, said that is why BNP leaders are threatening to shut down the Rooppur nuclear power plant.

While in state power, he claimed, BNP did not carry out any development in the country, instead the party made Bangladesh champion in graft five times in a row.

So, the AL general secretary said, the BNP leaders are continuously delivering misleading and false statements over mega projects such as Padma Bridge, Metrorail, Dhaka Elevated Expressway, Bangabandhu Tunnel constructed beneath Karnaphuli River and Rooppur nuclear power plant.

Today, nuclear power is being used in developed countries, including the USA and Europe, for human wellbeing, he said.

Mentioning that apart from Bangladesh, there are 438 nuclear power plants in 32 countries of the world, Quader said, informing that about 10% of all electricity generated in the world comes from nuclear energy.

In France, 75% of electricity is generated from nuclear energy, while 20% of electricity comes from nuclear energy in the United States, he said.
The road transport minister said nuclear power is highly environment-friendly due to zero carbon emissions. But, BNP does not like this kind of eco-friendly and cost-effective power generation, so they are making falsehoods about the Rooppur nuclear power plant, he said.

He said as BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir and its other leaders are narrow-minded, they are issuing threats to shut down such a mega project.

Quader said the country's people better know that the tools of BNP's politics are rumours, falsehood and propaganda.

The top leader of BNP had threatened that no one would run on the Padma Bridge as it was built with patchwork, and it is possible for the secretary general of that party to make such an inconsistent and ignorant statement, he said.

The AL general secretary urged the BNP leaders to avoid the tendency of diverting an issue of political humour into another direction.

He asked the BNP leaders to apologize to the people for making falsehoods out of political norms.

Quader said the ruling AL never believes in the politics of killing, but the BNP is a party of killers.

The BNP leaders are threatening to kill AL leaders and activists by distorting the universally accepted truth and trying to create anarchy in the country, he said.

The road transport and bridges minister said BNP founder Ziaur Rahman was the mastermind behind the assassination of Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.

Through a farcical court-martial, military dictator Ziaur Rahman killed scores of freedom fighters, including Colonel Taher and hundreds of officers of army, navy and air force, he said.

Quader said BNP launched a hellish grenade attack on 21 August, 2004 to kill AL President Sheikh Hasina and its other national leaders.