SWADESH ROY / DHAKA
It is more or less confirmed now that Sheikh Hasina will come to power in Bangladesh next time again. Instead of being the most popular leader, she is the bravest leader too in the country. According to International Republican Institute survey, 62% of the people of Bangladesh thinks that the country is heading towards right direction in her leadership, and 72 % people seems that she is the right person who can run the country properly.
Sheikh Hasina, the only democratic leader, is leading the country for two consecutive terms in Bangladesh. Before her, no democratic leaders in Bangladesh could lead the country for two consecutive terms, and it is now crystal clear about her coming to power next time. So, then it is going to be a history for this country.
Young Sheikh Hasina with her father
For creating this history, Sheikh Hasina has to cross a very wide and rough sea. She is never a politician by chance. She started her political carrier when she was only sixteen, and when she was an undergraduate student, she became the vice president in a college congress. Besides that, in the time of her college and university life, Bangladesh was fighting for her autonomy under her father’s leadership where she was one of the workers. Moreover, she was one of the political players working behind the scene at that age. Her father was the main leader of that democratic movement of sixties; although her father’s way of movement was an open democratic movement, the Pakistani Military ruler could understand that he was preparing his people for independence. So, they went for a camera trial for convicting her father, Sheikh Mujib, by awarding capital punishment. At that time the government, some people of civil society, and even some people of the Party of Mujib played many inside political games for destroying the political carrier of Mujib and abolishing the movement of independence of Bangladesh. In those days, her mother, Mrs. Mujib played a vital role; along with her mother despite being young, she played some crucial historical role too.
This political personality Sheikh Hasina started leading her party, Awami League, in 1981, just after seven years’ of her exile life and after the brutal assassination of her father, basically the whole family, except her and one of her sister. However, when she took the leadership of her party, the media in the country and the abroad have never mentioned that she was engaged in politics from her early age, and being a young political lady, she has taken headship of the biggest political party of Bangladesh; rather she was marked as an inherent of her father in the politics. Within two years of her taking the responsibility of the party, Khaleda Zia, the widow of military ruler Ziaur Rahaman, appeared in the politics and took charge of the party of military ruler Ziaur Rahaman too. That was one of the biggest conspiracies of the anti–liberation forces of Bangladesh. Because, after the assassination of Zia, another military ruler took the power, but that military ruler and their establishment managed to put on another of their stake on the road, Khaleda was that puppet of the military establishment.
Khaleda is never the archenemy of Sheikh Hasina, she is basically the conceptual enemy of Bangladesh. She represented the anti–liberation forces in Bangladesh. But covering with a camouflage, the pro–Pakistani establishment made her a democratic leader. However, last nine and a half years it has been proved that Khaleda never represents the democracy but Islamic fundamentalism
However, before coming in the politics, Khaleda was just a housewife, even not a literate housewife as she did not complete her school final. But it is a matter of misfortune for Sheikh Hasina that both inside and outside of her country that means the world media portrayed her and Khaleda as same and both are only the successors in politics for the death of Mujib and Zia. Nobody, even no political analysts thought of comparing Sheikh Hasina with Indira Gandhi, for she was all through in the politics like Indira Gandhi; in this sense, Khaleda did not match with her. However, Sheikh Hasina had to face the mockery under the caption of `two begums’ by the western media and ‘Dui netri (two leaders)’ in her own country. Basically, for a long time she was being compared with Khaleda even in the prominent western media too. It turns into an irony for the western media when they had to write Sheikh Hasina as a `mother of humanity’ after thirty–six years, and no doubt, Sheikh Hasina achieved it; even the weekly Economist has recently written that the politics of Bangladesh is for the one leader, and she is Sheikh Hasina.
Construction work on the country’s largest bridge on River Padma started in December in 2015 and it is expected that the mega construction will be completed by December next year. © PakistanDefence
In this context, it is clear that as a politician, in the politics of Bangladesh, Sheikh Hasina has reached in her own height which no one can touch. According to media, her arch–rival, Khaleda, is now convicted in the criminal case and passing her prison time. She has to remain in jail at least five years, besides she has to face more trials for genocide and mass killing she did in 2012, 2013, and 2015. However, here one thing is needed to clarify that Khaleda is never the archenemy of Sheikh Hasina, she is basically the conceptual enemy of Bangladesh. She represented the anti–liberation forces in Bangladesh. But covering with a camouflage, the pro–Pakistani establishment made her a democratic leader. However, last nine and a half years it has been proved that Khaleda never represents the democracy but Islamic fundamentalism. In the name of democratic politics, she gives the entire Islamic militant in Bangladesh shelter, and her son is the close ally of international gangster Dawood Ibrahim and very close to the second in command of Laden. So, the people used to write or tell that Khaleda is the archenemy of Sheikh Hasina were telling a half–truth. She is an enemy of the country, not Sheikh Hasina’s. Therefore, the politics of Bangladesh will be fair when the works and political characteristics of Khaleda will be unveiled to the people of Bangladesh. As an illustration, the majority of the new generations are now very much cautious about the real face of Khaleda. Therefore, the politics of Bangladesh will get the hundred percent right direction very soon and in result, it will help Sheikh Hasina for going to power next time.
Now we can analyse the reality of the feature development in Bangladesh, and this development issue is the main factor in the next election of Bangladesh. How much development has been accomplished by Sheikh Hasina last nine years ? It is more than the development of the rest 38 years of Bangladesh. Each and every sensible man and woman of Bangladesh will admit that last nine years were the golden era of development. If anyone of the economists goes to analyse the development of Bangladesh by Sheikh Hasina, he or she will find out first that Sheikh Hasina is an artist of the development. She knows like an artist how to use the colour for starting to sketch a painting. When she came to power in 2009 with an overwhelming majority, she initiated first to make the country self–sufficient in rice, the main food of her people; simultaneously she was the first who started to make the country self–sufficient in
Riot police neutralising Hefazat–e–Islam supporters. © Getty
electricity. For producing electricity, she made a new law in the country which made it easier to get the permission for setting up electricity plant in the private sector. Within two years she made her country self–sufficient in main food rice, and though there is no limit of production and necessity of the electricity, the country had reached such a position within three years that the scenario of producing electricity was changed totally. Besides she gave the subsidy in electricity sector like agriculture sector, for example, she gave nine thousand hundred core BDT subsidy in first three years; but in those period, the country produced more fifteen million hundred BDT in the industrial and agricultural sector. Despite, none of the factories was closed for the shortage of electricity, rather thousand hundred jobs were created. Now the capacity of producing electricity is above two thousand megawatts.
Within two years of her taking the responsibility of the party, Khaleda Zia, the widow of military ruler Ziaur Rahaman, appeared in the politics and took charge of the party of military ruler Ziaur Rahaman too. That was one of the biggest conspiracies of the anti–liberation forces of Bangladesh
In this way, after producing main food and electricity, she has started to build up the heavy infrastructures in the country, like Padma Bridge, Metro rail, six–lane road. Besides that, she has been establishing two new seaports in the country, and one will be started its operation within six months. To sum up this development of the country, World Bank has now graduated Bangladesh as a developing country from less developed country.
In conclusion, it is clear now, Sheikh Hasina is quite unparalleled in politics, and on the other hand she is the artist of the development of Bangladesh. So, next election is only her election. Moreover, people of every country know their own well and worse, and the people of Bangladesh are not out of it. ■
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