The Awami League president, Sheikh Hasina, on Thursday accused BNP of giving party tickets to godfathers and persons tainted by corruption and crime for contesting the parliamentary polls, scheduled for December 29.
Addressing rallies on her campaign trail in southern districts, she warned the voters that lawlessness would return and the country would be in danger if the BNP-Jamaat alliance returned to power.

Sheikh Hasina addressed six election rallies in different areas in Bagerhat and Khulna districts and urged the people to vote for the candidates of the AL-led grand alliance to save the country.

‘The people were persecuted and tortured and the image of the country was ruined by the BNP-Jamaat coalition which came to power in 2001through conspiracy’, she said. ‘Plunderers will destroy the country if they get a chance to assume state power again’, she added.

Sheikh Hasina slammed the BNP-Jamaat coalition for persecuting and torturing minorities and pledged that the AL-led alliance, if voted to power, would take effective steps so that not a single person of the minority communities was repressed.

‘Stamp the symbol of boat on the ballot and I will build a secular and democratic Bangladesh free from all types of intimidation, oppression, poverty and the curse of unemployment where minority groups will perform their rituals without fear’, she told a rally in Bagherhat where minorities, like in many other places, were persecuted after the BNP-Jamaat coalition assumed power in 2001.

Terming Islam as the religion of peace, Sheikh Hasina said that those who had unleashed terror and indulged in corruption using religion were enemies of Islam.

‘I do not want to see any more bomb attacks, corruption and militancy in the country… I will take initiatives to build Bangladesh as a developed and peaceful country in Asia’, she told her audience.

The former prime minister also pledged to take initiatives to feed the extreme poor and free healthcare services for them if her party was voted to power.

Referring to the promise made in the AL’s election manifesto, she said her party would modernise the Mongla sea port and construct a deep sea port in Mongla which would be opened to all countries of Asia.

‘Prices of essentials will be reduced, production of power will be increased, education up to degree level will be made free, agricultural inputs will be subsidised and community health care facilities will be ensured,’ Sheikh Hasina said.

The AL President addressed campaign rallies at AK Fazlul Haque government primary school ground in Chitalmari, Mollahat Government College ground and Kazi Azhar Ali College ground at Fakirhat in Bagerhat 1 constituency for which the AL president is contesting the polls besides two other seats.

She also addressed rallies at Khanjahan Ali College ground in Bagerhat 2 constituency, Rupsha Amdabad school ground in Khulna 4 and circuit house ground in Khulna 2 constituency and introduced AL-led alliance candidates Shawkat Ali Badsha, Molla Jalal Uddin and Mizanur Rahman Mizan to the voters amid cheers.

Sheikh  Hasina, accompanied by her younger sister Sheikh Rehana and Rehana’s daughter Azmina Siddique Ruponti, left Dhaka on December 16 for poll campaigns in districts. She is scheduled to return to the capital today after addressing rallies in Jessore, Narail, Kushtia, Jhenaidah, Magura and Faridpur districts.

She also pledged to ensure power supply to every village, resolve the problem of water logging in the southern districts, ensure arsenic-free water, develop educational and religious institutions and increase allowances for freedom fighters, widows and elderly people.

Addressing a huge rally in Khulna, she assured the voters that Khulna city would be industrialised and the city dwellers would get gas supply. She also committed to set up a new wage commission for industrial workers.

Sheikh Hasina pledged to offer loans to shrimp farmers on easy terms.

Hundreds of thousands of people gathered at the rallies to hear Sheikh Hasina.

Mollahat thana Jubo League leader Warid Chowdhury, 25 was killed as a truck knocked his motorbike at Garfa in Mollahat Thursday morning.

He was on way to Chitalmari to attend a campaign rally of Sheikh Hasina. Hasina visited the house of the deceased.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has been elected vice-chairman of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) for the next three years, according a prestigious position to Bangladesh in the big global forum. She was made NAM Vice-chairman when she was presiding over the general debate on 'Current Global Financial and Economic Crisis' on the opening day of the two-day summit of the forum that got off to a ceremonial start in this Egyptian resort city on Wednesday. Meanwhile, Sheikh Hasina attended the second-day sessions of the 15th NAM Summit and presided over part of the opening programmes of the day.