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AL to build poverty free Sonar Bangla: PM
DHAKA, June 22, 2019 (BSS) – Prime Minster and Awami League (AL) President Sheikh Hasina today greeted the countrymen on the occasion of AL’s 70th founding anniversary saying the party along with the people would build a hunger-poverty free, happy and prosperous Sonar Bangla as dreamt by Bangabandhu.
“On this day I recall with respect the greatest Bengali of all time, Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. I recall Awami League’s founder president Maulana Abdul Hamid Khan Bhasani and general secretary Shamsul Haque. I recall with respect Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy,” she said in a message issued marking the anniversary.
She recalled with respect the four national leaders, and all martyrs of struggles for freedom, Liberation War and struggles for democracy and all leaders and workers of AL who had embraced martyrdom to turn the party into the largest organization of masses.
The AL president greeted the party leaders and workers and supporters on the occasion alongside the countrymen.
“Awami League has a glorious role in every major achievement of the nation. People are the source of power of Awami League. In future Awami League along with the people will build a poverty-hunger free, happy, prosperous and developed Sonar Bangladesh as envisioned by the Father of the Nation,” she said.
She recalled that the party was established on June 23 in 1949 at “Rose Garden” on K M Das Lane in Dhaka and said the history of the AL is closely linked with the people’s struggle for realizing their rights.
“The Language Movement in 1952, the Jukta Front election in 1954, the anti-Ayub movement in 1962, the restoration of communal harmony after the 1964 riot, the six-point movement in 1966 and the mass upsurge in 1969- all took place under the leadership of the AL,” she said.
In the general elections of 1970, the people of Bangladesh gave an absolute majority to the Awami League and in continuation to that, Bangabandhu on March 7 in 1971 declared that “This time the struggle is for our freedom. This time the struggle is for our independence” the Prime Minister mentioned.
She continued that on the Black Night of March 25 in 1971, the Pakistani occupation forces swooped on the people and the history’s most brutal genocide began.
Sheikh Hasina said Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman had declared the country’s independence using the then EPR wireless in the first hour of March 26, she said.
Soon after the declaration of independence by Bangabandhu, Pakistani occupation forces arrested him and sent to West Pakistan jail, she added.
The premier said the country had achieved its final victory on December 16 in 1971 following the Liberation War conducted under the AL government formed at Mujibnagar in Meherpur district on April 10.
After independence when Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was busy building the nation, the assassins killed Bangabandhu and most of his family members on the fateful night of August 15 in 1975.
Subsequently on November 3 in 1975 the four national leaders were killed in prison to make Awami League leaderless.
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The Prime Minister said there were national and international conspiracies to destroy the AL, but those intrigues went in vain.
She said after a long struggle to establish democracy, the AL returned to power in 1996 and then the AL ran the country successfully from 1996 to 2001.
Sheikh Hasina said the AL government turned food-deficit Bangladesh into a food-surplus country, signed the Ganges water sharing treaty with India and inked the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) peace treaty.
Waging a movement against the BNP-Jamaat government and facing all conspiracies of the caretaker government, the Awami League was once again voted to power in 2008, she added.
In the last 10 and an half years, she said the Awami League government carried out tremendous development in all sectors, specially agriculture, education, health, communication, information technology, infrastructure, power, rural economic growth and diplomacy.
“Bangladesh is now a role model of development in the world. The country’s GDP growth stood at 7.86 percent last year and this year it will be above 8 percent. The people’s income and purchasing capacity have increased. Our per capita income has increased to US $1,909,” she noted.
The premier said the income of over five crore people enhanced to middle income level from the lower income status and the country achieved self-sufficiency in food production.
“At present the country’s around one-fourth people have been brought under the social safety net while 93 percent people are getting electricity facilities,” Sheikh Hasina said, adding different development data including the health facilities for the rural people who can get 30 types of medicines at free of cost.
She said Bangladesh has launched Bangabandhu Satellite-1 into the space as the 57th country in the world.
The Awami League government, she said, has been implementing massive programmes for infrastructural development including construction of roads, bridges, flyovers, alleviated expressway and railways.
Construction works of metro-rail in Dhaka is underway while the Padma Multipurpose Bridge is being constructed with country’s own finance, she added.
The premier said her government is pledge-bound to turn Bangladesh into a prosperous country by implementing ‘Vision 2021’ and ‘Vision 2041’.
She called upon the people irrespective of party affiliations and opinions to come forward to continue this trend of development.
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