“All will have to be alert so that the success which the 14-party alliance achieved waging a movement under the leadership of Sheikh Hasina for ensuring neutral election and people’s voting rights are not lost in this way. The election will have to be brought back to its due dignity,” he told parliament.
Menon, also former social welfare minister, made the remarks joining the general discussion on the thanksgiving motion on the President’s speech in the House.
He, however, said, “The last parliamentary election were held in a successful manner, but the experiences of that election are not good in all cases.”
BNP and Jamaat joined the election aiming to spoil it and they applied strategies to make the election at least questionable in the national and international arenas, he said.
Menon said the BNP-Jamaat alliance fielded no active candidate in the election due to Tarique Rahman’s nomination trade. “Those fielded had not been in the electoral race truly. They’re talking about various election irregularities, but can’t place any fact and evidence (in favour of their claims),” he said.
Talking about the countrywide upazila elections, the Workers Party president demanded that the polls must be held in a free and neutral manner. “A negative perception over the election has recently been created in public mind and the people have lost their interest to cast votes. To remove this perception, the upazila polls must be free and neutral,” he said.
Menon demanded the ruling party alongside the Election Commission give assurance to keep the election free from all sorts of interference of the administration.
He also demanded the government create democratic space so that the opposition parties can stand on their own feet.
“The Prime Minister asked the (Awami League’s) partners under the 14-party alliance to stand on their own feet. No one can go forward with the organisation, movement and vote unless there’s democratic space. This space will have to be created today,” he said.
Though he praised the government for accelerating the GDP growth and the per capita income, Menon said the benefits of the higher GDP growth are being distributed unequally.
He criticised the government for constructing the Rampal Thermal Power Plant near the Sundarbans, and ‘radicalising’ school textbooks as per demands of Hefazat-e-Islam Bangladesh.
Menon said the Prime Minister after assuming power this time declared zero tolerance against corruption, but the government has curtailed the power of the Anti-Corruption Commission amending its law.
“The ACC takes anomalies of primary schoolteachers in cognisance, but it didn’t take any effective measures for Basic Bank’s scam of thousands of crores of Taka,” he said, adding that if the anti-corruption watchdog wants to curb corruption, it needs to start checking corruption from the top levels of the state and the society.