Bangladesh’s opposition alliance returns to parliament
By DPA, IANSThursday, February 11, 2010
DHAKA - Bangladesh’s main opposition parties returned to parliament Thursday, breaking over 10 months of boycott over a seating row.
Opposition leader Khaleda Zia led her deputies in the house as the parliament session resumed Thursday afternoon.
“We returned to parliament to stay in the house to discuss issues of national importance,” opposition chief whip Zainul Abdin Farruque said on the parliament floor, requesting Speaker Abdul Hamid to allow them to voice their issues.
He also urged the members of the treasury benches not to make any derogatory remarks about former prime minister Zia and her family.
Welcoming the opposition lawmakers, Hamid said their return would make parliament livelier and called upon all lawmakers to be tolerant.
“The opposition should take part in constructive criticism so that the government gets corrected if there is any mistake,” Hamid said.
The Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and its allies - Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami and Bangladesh Jatiya Party - have boycotted the parliamentary proceedings since April 2009 over row over seating arrangements in the chamber.
The opposition alliance has a total of 38 lawmakers in the 345-strong parliament.
Bangladesh returned to a parliamentary democracy in January 2009, ending a two years of military-backed interim administration which had assumed in office in the wake of serious political turmoil.
Politics in Bangladesh is sharply polarised between the ruling Awami League of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and Zia’s BNP.
