"The achievement that came through sacrifices and endurance of Awami League is the Liberation of Bangladesh...today we have got a country of our own, we have got our dignity as a nation...this is the biggest  achievement," she said.

The Prime Minister was speaking in Parliament on an unscheduled discussion on the founding anniversary of Awami League.

"This  political party, since its founding,  has served humanity and people...it always speaks for the deprived people, it always struggles for establishing their rights,"  she told the House.   

But, she regretted, when Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman got the steering to drive the republic ahead then the Mostaque-Ziaur Rahman clique brutally assassinated him.

"As a result, the forward march of the country was blocked."

Sheikh Hasina, also the chief of the ruling Awami League, said once there were hectic efforts to erase the name of Bangabandhu from history. "But, it was not possible."

"The truth cannot be erased...the Father of the Nation is not with us physically, but his existence remains in the hearts of Bangalees...we have to fulfil his desire, we will build hunger-, poverty-free 'Golden Bengal,'" she said.

Sheikh Hasina said anyone can see that people can gain something only when Awami League comes to power as it works for development and others tried to pull the country back.

Talking about the coronavirus pandemic ,   she said Awami League cut short its celebration programmes for Mujib Borsho and party's founding anniversary due to this virus. 

"The welfare  of people is the top priority to us....  we cancelled the programmes as there will be huge public gatherings in those programmes.... we always give priority to people's welfare," she said.

Briefly describing the founding history of Awami League,  the party chief said this party always talked about the rights of  people and fought in every movement, including Language Movement, to establish people's rights, since its formation.

She said Father of the Nation led the country to its Independence while people took up arms responding to his call for Independence.

Hasina briefly described various activities of the party and the government to ease the sufferings of people cauesed by  the coronavirus.

She vowed to stay beside people always as AL did in the past.

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The Prime  Minister  said the sun of independence that had set with the defeat of the Siraj-ud-Daulah at Palashi Mango Orchard once again rose with the formation of the Awami League (on June 23 in 1949 at “Rose Garden” on KM Das Lane in Dhaka) as the country’s independence had been achieved under the leadership of the party.

She said the first independent government was formed on April 10 in 1971 with making the Father of the Nation as the maiden President, Syed Nazrul Islam as first Vice-President and Tajuddin Ahmed as the first Prime Minister of the country while the government took oath on April 17 the same year at Mujibnagar in Meherpur, a part of the Palashi Mango Orchard.

“That government had directed the Liberation War of 1971 and finally brought the victory.”

She said the leaders and activists of the Awami League, Chhatra League, Juba League, Swechchhasebak League and its other front and associate bodies have been currently working round the clock to reach the relief materials to every doorstep and join the funerals  (of Covid-19 patients) and thus everything.

The Prime  Minister  said Awami League men are now being engaged in planting trees on a larger scale as part of her government’s programme of planting trees across the country marking the birth centenary of the Father of the Nation.  

She recalled with respect the greatest Bengali of all times, Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, Awami League’s founding president Mawlana Abdul Hamid Khan Bhasani and general secretary Shamsul Haque and Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy.

Sheikh Hasina recalled the contributions  of the Awami League leaders and workers in all the democratic and progressive movements, and expressed her gratitude to those who sacrificed their lives and prayed for salvation of their departed souls.