AL-BNP dispute rages over JS seating plan
Courtesy New Age 25/1/09
Dispute between the ruling Awami League and the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party on the seating arrangements in the front row in the Jatiya Sangsad continued till Saturday evening.
Chief whip Abdus Shahid Saturday afternoon said he had sent a draft seating plan to the speaker Jamiruddin Sircar giving the BNP three out of ten seats in the front row to the left of the speaker.
The BNP was, however, demanding all the seats in the two front rows to the left of the speaker, a senior BNP MP said.
Abdus Shahid expressed his annoyance Saturday evening as Sircar, seemingly bypassing the chief whip’s suggestion, had granted two front rows to the left of the speaker to the main opposition BNP and two other parties.
‘I talked to the speaker over phone and sought a clarification why he did it [granted seats] unilaterally,’ the chief whip told New Age.
He said the BNP lawmakers should get only three seats in the front row as the party has only 28 lawmakers in the 300-strong parliament.
The speaker insisted that he had taken the right decision according to parliamentary practices and Rules of Procedure.
According to rule seven of the Rules of Procedure, the speaker will decide the seating arrangement.
‘If you think my decision is incorrect, the next speaker can change the arrangement,’ Shahid quoted Sircar as telling him.
When asked whether the lawmakers of BNP would join the inauguration of the ninth parliament this [Sunday] afternoon as the ruling and the main opposition party were engaged in a dispute over seat arrangement, Salauddin Quader Chowdhury, a senior BNP lawmaker, said at about 10:00pm, ‘We will join the session if the dispute is resolved unless we are compelled to take an instant decision tomorrow.’
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