BNP Chairman Tarique Rahman on Monday said those who disrespect women, spread lies, and deprive people of their voting rights can never be patriots or pro-people.
He made the remarks while addressing a BNP election rally at the Prabhati School ground in Khulna around 12:45pm.
Tarique Rahman said Bangladesh must move forward through concrete actions, not mere rhetoric. If BNP comes to power, he said, its first responsibility would be national reconstruction. The country, he added, must be rebuilt by bringing everyone together, regardless of party affiliation, class, or profession, noting that nation-building is never possible by relying on only one section of society.
He further said Bangladesh’s population is nearly 20 crore, of whom at least 10 crore are women. No matter how ambitious a plan may be, he said, it is impossible to move the country forward while leaving such a vast segment of women behind. He recalled that former prime minister Begum Khaleda Zia introduced free education for women from school to intermediate level to help them become educated and self-reliant.
Criticising what he described as misogynistic remarks by a political party ahead of the election, Tarique Rahman said a party has openly declared that it does not believe in women’s leadership. He alleged that a leader of that party recently used obscene language against working mothers and sisters, which he said was shameful even to utter. Such remarks, he added, are a disgrace not only to women but to the entire nation.
He said hundreds of thousands of women in Bangladesh are employed in the garment industry and are keeping the country’s economy running. Women from lower-middle- and middle-class families, he said, are working alongside their husbands to support their households due to rising commodity prices, yet are now being subjected to humiliation.