DHAKA, – Awami League General Secretary and Road Transport and Bridges Minister Obaidul Quader today said hartal is no more a weapon of mass movement as the countrymen understand the reality.

“Gas price has been increased for cost adjustment. Even after that the government will have to give subsidy,” he told a press conference at the AL president’s Dhanmondi political office following a meeting of the party secretariat.

He said there was no reflection of the hartal called by left-leaning parties for today in protest of the gas price hike. “Everything was normal everywhere,” he added. Quader said: “We do realistic politics in people’s interest. We don’t do politics over vote issue.”

Commenting on BNP’s call for a movement to free the party’s Chairperson Begum Khaleda Zia from jail, he said BNP could not wage any movement even for 10 minutes in the past 10 years and the party won’t be able to do that in future too.

Whenever any court verdict goes against BNP, its leaders do not want to obey law, trial and verdict, he added.

Replying to a question, Quader said Awami League’s national conference will be held in due time as “We have necessary preparations for it.” He said July 21 has been fixed for form distribution for ‘member collection campaign’ of the party.

The key target of the campaign is to include persons who believe in the spirit of Liberation War, who were not involved in wrongdoings and those who worked for the party in the previous elections.

AL Joint General Secretaries Mahbubul Alam Hanif, Dr Dipu Moni, Advocate Jahangir Kabir Nanak and Abdur Rahman, Organizing Secretaries Ahmed Hossain, Khalid Mahmud Chowdhury and AKM Enamul Haque Shamim, Information and Research Secretary Afjal Hossain, Science and Technology Affairs Secretary Engineer Abdus Sabur, Relief and Social Welfare Secretary Sujit Roy Nandi, Forest and Environment Secretary Delwar Hossain and Central Working Committee member Marufa Akhter Popy were present in the press conference.