AL never flees

GBNEWS24DESK//

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has said Awami League leaders and activists never flee the country. Rather, they stay with the people for their welfare.

Addressing a massive rally at Rajshahi city’s Madrasa Maidan yesterday, the premier called upon the people to elect her party again in the next general election to build a developed, prosperous and smart Bangladesh by 2041.

“To those who are saying that the Awami League will not get the chance of fleeing, I want to make it clear that the Awami League never flees, but their [BNP] leaders do,” she said.

Hasina, also the AL president, said she faced obstacles while returning home from abroad during the rules of Ziaur Rahman in 1981 and the caretaker government in 2007. But she still managed to come back.

Before taking the stage at the venue, the PM inaugurated 26 projects, including seven of the Rajshahi City Corporation, worth over Tk 1,333 crore. She also laid the foundation stones of six others involving over Tk 375 crore.

This was the PM’s first public rally in the northwestern city after five years.

The venue was filled to the brim with AL leaders, activists and supporters around 11:00am, about four hours before Hasina reached there.

As people waited for the PM to join the programme, renowned Baul artist Shafi Mondol and his troupe performed folk songs. Local artists also performed the Swadhin Bangla Betar Kendra songs.

Twelve large screens broadcasting the event live in different areas in the city attracted hundreds of AL leaders and activists, disrupting traffic movement at some places.

At the Ghoshpara intersection near Rajshahi Medical College Hospital, some hospital-goers and ambulances were seen stuck in traffic.

Other than several hundred buses and trucks, the participants of the rally were brought to the city in some 40 boats through the Padma river.