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.