Hasina dares Zia to prove ’secret deal’ with India
By IANSWednesday, February 3, 2010
DHAKA - Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh hasina Wedneday dared her political rival and opposition leader Begum Khaleda Zia to “make public any document” to prove that she (Hasina) signed a “secret deal” with India during her New Delhi visit last month.
She told the Jatiya Sangsad (National Assembly) that she had signed no such deal as was being alleged since her Jan 13-16 talks with the Indian leadership.
She refuted Zia’s allegation and asked her (Khaleda) to refrain from giving such “misleading and false information in the greater national interest,” the Bangladesh Sangbad Sanstha (BSS) news agency reported.
“If you have any document regarding the so-called secret deal, please make it public. Don’t mislead the people by giving such untrue information,” she told Zia and other leasders of the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP).
Hasina criticised the “reckless remarks” of the leader of the opposition in parliament and said that the party (BNP) “always pacifies India while in power and opposes the neighbour while in the opposition.”
“India is good when BNP is in power, India is bad when BNP is in the opposition,” she taunted her rival.
Zia had criticised the two agreements and three MoUs terming them as “a sell-out to India.”
Hasina maintained that the agreements signed with India during her visit to New Delhi was meant for “upholding the national interest and spirit of the country’s independence and sovereignty as well as the nation’s dignity.”
Describing her India visit as “a fruitful one”, Hasina said this trip has heralded “a new era” in bilateral relations.
Responding to another supplementary from treasury bench member Mosharraf Hossain, she said her government had plans to expand and modernise Chittagong and the Mongla ports so that India, Nepal and Bhutan could use them.
“It would help generate employment side by side with socio-economic development of the country,” she said adding that only 10 percent of Mongla port and 40 percent of Chittagong port were being used currently.
Hasina said her government was trying hard to resolve all unresolved problems over enclaves, communications and 54 common rivers between India and Bangladesh in line with the Indira-Mujib Agreement of 1974.
