Tarique Rahman seeks limit on PM’s consecutive terms

BNP acting chairman Tarique Rahman on Tuesday said no person should be the Prime Minister for more than two consecutive terms in the country.

“I personally think that a person should in no way be the prime minister at least for more than two consecutive terms,” he said while replying to a question from a student at a workshop held in BNP chairperson’s Gulshan office.

Tarique Rahman, who joined the event through a virtual platform, said he firmly believes that it is not possible for an individual to work sincerely after a maximum of 10 years as the person might be physically and mentally exhausted. 

BNP Training Affairs Committee arranged the workshop titled “31-point state reform and public engagement” for the private university students.

In reply to another question, the BNP acting chairman said if BNP comes to power, it would not keep the provision of using symbols of political parties in the local body elections.

Addressing the workshop, he spelled out his party’s thoughts and plans over the reform of the country’s structures and development of different sectors, including education, healthcare, agricultural, financial, environment, water and the commodity supply chain.

Tarique put emphasis on the establishment of the political and economic rights of the people in the country. “If we can’t establish the political rights and economic rights of the people simultaneously, there’ll be no use of any reform, no matter how much we talk about reform,” he said.

The BNP leader said the political rights and economic independence of people must be established at any cost. “If so we’ll be able to implement all reform programmes gradually.”

About corruption, Tarique said the nation should be taken out of the culture of corruption. “We’ll have to curb corruption at anyhow and take the nation and the country out of it.”

He said there was a law during the last BNP’s regime that ACC won’t require to take any permission from the government to conduct an investigation against anyone. The ACC was independent.

But the previous autocratic government changed this law and incorporated a provision to take prior permission from the government to carry out investigation against any government official or employee, he said.

Raising his party’s thoughts about the future education system, he said they would increase the budget for the education sector and give emphasis on primary education by enhancing the quality of the teachers through proper training and recruiting meritorious teachers in primary schools.

Besides, learning the third language alongside Bengali and English would be compulsory for the class VI-X students. The third language could be Italian, French, German, Mandarin, Arabic or Japanese.  “I want to keep another language compulsory alongside Bengali and English,” he said.

He believes that if a worker with knowledge of a third language goes abroad, the person won’t face difficulty in availing a job there.

The BNP acting chairman said if BNP comes to power, it would introduce family cards to give financial support to every family and farmer cards to provide support to actual farmers in the country.  

“There will be family cards for every family in the country. The card will be given against the name of the mother or wife in a family,” he said.     

Citing an example, he said if the support of Tk 2,500 to Tk 3,000 will be given from the state for every family a month and the family could save some money, which would ultimately help make the family financially independent.  

About BNP’s plan about the agricultural sector, Tarique said they would try to discourage imported items and encourage local products.

He said farmer cards will be given by preparing a database of the country’s actual farmers in order to provide fertilizers support and other facilities including crops insurance coverage and if possible, interest-free loans to the real farmers.

About the healthcare sector, the BNP leader said his party will create tens of thousands of ‘Palli Chikishak’ (village physicians) to provide more than one physicians for every village as a project titled ‘Palli Chikishak’ was implemented during the regime of BNP founder Ziaur Rahman.

Some 70-75 percent of the village physicians would be women as they have easy access to any house in a village and convince the women, he said.

About the commodity market, Tarique Rahman said there is a problem in the essential commodity supply chain and this is extortion. “We must curb extortion,” he said.

It’ll have another supply chain alongside the traditional supply chain, he said, adding that normalcy should also be restored in the price-hike of essential items.

About his party’s thoughts about the environment, the BNP leader said dredging canals and rivers would be one of their priorities.

If BNP gets a chance to come to power, the canals and rivers would be dredged to make water reservoirs throughout the country and channel flood water, he said.

Tarique Rahman said they would enhance the tree plantation to improve the environment.