BNP-Jamaat clique to destroy country if returns to power: PM

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina today said the BNP-Jamaat clique will just destroy the country with their unbridled looting and corruption if they return to power as they did in the past.

"... they'll just eat up the country through their looting if they get back to power...there'll be no change in people's fate," she said.

The Prime Minister said this when leaders and activists of Swehhasebak League met her on the occasion of the founding anniversary of their organisation at her official residence Ganobhaban.

She said Khaleda Zia could not restrain herself from embezzling even orphans' money. "How they'll give anything to people returning to power...they won't be able to give anything to people, they'll just engage themselves in looting and corruption."

Sheikh Hasina, also the President of the ruling Awami League, mentioned that the BNP chief is now in jail for embezzlement of orphans' money. "We didn't put her in jail for political reason. Had we wanted to do that we could have done that in 2013, 2014 and 2013."

She said the people of the country have no trust and faith in the BNP-Jamaat clique. "This has been proved," she said.

Talking about the unabated corruption and money laundering during the BNP-Jamaat regime, the Prime Minister said these have been proved in the USA, too.

She also said Awami League brought back the confidence of people in government after its return to power through the 2008 election.

"If anyone does politics for personal gains that politics cannot give anything to the country, and that person takes everything for himself or herself...history never pardons such person," Hasina said. The Prime Minister also said if the politics is just in the interest and welfare of people, then the politicians can give something to the country. "And we're doing that."

She said the main aim of the Awami League is to build the fate of people, not its own. "I'm not there in politics to make own fortune... I just want one thing-to change the fate of people."

Hasina said the government has already ensured food security in the country and want to make it a poverty-free one. "We're implementing programmes to that end."

She mentioned her government wants to make Bangladesh a poverty- and hunger-free country one as dreamt by Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.

AL general secretary Obaidul Kader, Swechhasebak League president Advocate Molla Mohammad Abu Kawsar and general secretary Pankaj Debnath also spoke on the occasion.