The fight over forced homelessness of one by the other has gone beyond personal and political rivalry between Sheikh Hasina and Begum Zia. BNP supporters have called a strike this weekend and took to the streets to protest Khaleda Zia’s eviction from her cantonment home; police have beat back party activists, and failing to do so, have pushed back groups of young men with batons in a most paradoxical means to keep the peace.
The grounds for Begum Zia’s eviction are ostensibly legal. Whatever their legal standing, they are morally compelling. Why should a sitting opposition leader and former Prime Minister live in a house that was properly reserved for a leader of the Bangladesh military? The exchange on which her house lease has stood is known to have been too close to corruption for a blameless write-off.
Now, the Daily Star reports, some BNP leader are persuading their parliamentary ranks to resign from the legislature to protest Mrs. Zia’s eviction.
This is an odd move since the BNP has been boycotting parliament since 2009. Moreover it is difficult to see how mass resignations can be anything but a petulant and unkind move that plays only at base politics and baser partisanship. The opposition’s blunt kowtowing to their party leader resembles nothing but the sniveling sobs of a thwarted,wayward child lost in a zoo.
Consider one Ruhul Quddus Talukdar Dulu (a Rajput name, surely!), who according to the Daily Star, claimed:
“They attacked Khaleda Zia, who is our symbol. We will respond, and none of those who unlawfully ousted the chairperson from her house will be spared,” Idolatry on stilts made of sand.
Of course Begum Zia will not approve such a move. Indeed, the party bylines require her permission for any move within the party, much less one so daft and unnecessary.