DHAKA, April 18, 2020 (BSS) – The seventh session of the current 11th
Parliament was convened today for a one-day session to comply with
constitutional obligations amid COVID-19 shutdown with Speaker Dr Shirin
Sharmin Chaudhury in the chair.
“Honourable President (M Abdul Hamid) convened the session due to
constitutional obligations (amid COVID-19 shutdown) . . . the session will be
very brief,” Chaudhury said in her opening statement after recitations from
the Holy Quran.
Leader of the House and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina joined the session
when lawmakers sat in the chamber maintaining COVID-19 guidelines for
physical distancing.
The proceedings began with a condolence motion for the victims of the
COVID-19 fatalities in the country including Dr Moinuddin Ahmed of Sylhet
Osmany Medical College Hospital and others elsewhere across the world.
Simultaneously the Speaker named several prominent persons including
sitting lawmaker and former land minister Shamsur Rahman Sherif and eight
other former lawmakers who died since the last Sangsad session was prorogued.
In an unprecedented parliamentary practice, the Speaker urged the House
leader to make her valedictory speech simultaneously with her opening
statement and comments on the condolence motion saying she received by now
the presidential order to prorogue the session.
Earlier on Tuesday, a Jatiya Ssangsad Secretariat handout said that the
7th session of the House, the second session in 2020, was summoned at 5 pm on
April 18.
“It’s been decided that the session will be ‘very short’ considering the
safety of life of all due to the countrywide outbreak of global pandemic
coronavirus,” the handout said.
It simultaneously urged newsmen to cover the session watching the ‘Sangsad
Bangladesh Television’ instead of going to parliament physically.