Opposition boycotts Bangladesh parliament

Opposition boycotts Bangladesh parliament

DHAKA (Reuters): Opposition lawmakers boycotted the opening of
the early autumn session of the Bangladesh parliament on Sunday,
which also saw a ruling party member quit over differences with
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.

Kader Siddiky, a lawmaker of Awami League, handed his
resignation to Speaker Humayun Rasheed Chowdhury soon after the
house convened.

"I have decided to quit as Awami lawmaker because of
differences with the prime minister who recently called me 'mad
and a goat'," he said in his letter of resignation.

"I think it is impossible to stay with Hasina's party after
such allegations have been made against me," Siddiky added.
Chowdhury said he would consider the resignation before accepting
it.

The boycott was pre-planned as opposition leader Begum Khaleda
Zia, head of Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), had earlier
warned of such action in a dispute over a government plan to let
Indian goods pass through Bangladesh.

Besides the BNP deputies, members of Jatiya Party loyal to
former president Hossain Mohammad Ershad, the Jamaat-e-islami and
Islami Oikyo Jote backed the boycott.

The BNP and its allies said they would not attend parliament
until and unless the government publicly renounced its plan to
allow transportation of Indian goods by Bangladeshi trucks from
one Indian border to another over Bangladesh territory.

Hasina said the plan, if approved after consideration by a
joint experts committee, would earn Bangladesh $400 million a
year.

But Khaleda said such a "suicidal" plan could jeopardize
Bangladesh's independence and sovereignty. She said India might
also use the transit facility to send troops and weapons to
landlocked northeast Indian states to fight separatist rebels.

The opposition parties have staged three days of strikes in
protest against the plan and Khaleda has said she would "give
blood but not transit to India."

Hasina on Saturday urged Khaleda to debate the issue in
parliament instead of causing suffering to the people and the
economy by calling strikes and shutdowns. But her plea has gone
unheeded.

Siddiky, a veteran of Bangladesh's 1971 war of independence,
started falling out with Hasina early this year over a number of
policy issues.

Hasina last month sacked him from the party but did not strip
him of his parliament seat immediately.

Siddiky had commanded some 17,000 Bengali guerrillas in the
1971 war against Pakistan, which won him the name "Tiger Siddiky"
for his valor.