Hasina urges party to work for election win

Awami League president Sheikh Hasina has called upon her party to work together with a view to ensuring the triumph of the party in the next parliamentary election, said an AL statement issued on the party's 59th founding anniversary Monday.
"AL leaders and supporters will have to work to make Bangladesh a medium income range country by 2020, through establishing democracy and by participating in the national elections," the AL president was quoted as saying to expatriate party members in the US on Sunday.

Hasina is currently in the country on a temporary release order from the Bangladesh government to seek better medical treatment.

Recalling the incidents of her arrest and detention after she returned home from the US last year, Hasina said: "I returned to my country amid great risks with a view to establishing democracy."

Replying to a query, she said: "I don't have any resentment. I want to work for the country."

She said she was released as her party leaders and supporters launched movements for her at home and abroad.

Expressing her gratefulness to them, the AL chief said: "AL has proved how to work jointly during critical times."

The former prime minister said people had been happy during her regime.

But the country now lags behind in different areas, as AL had not returned to power again, she added.

The government released Hasina for eight weeks on June 11, to seek medical treatment abroad. She went to the US the next day.

Speaking to mark the party's 59th founding anniversary at the house of AL president for Washington in the US, Khalid Hassan, Hasina said: "The AL was founded to establish democracy and people's rights."