Editorial
Boycotting budget session is a bad idea
AL must fulfil its obligations to its voters
The stated logic behind the opposition Awami League's decision not to join the forthcoming budget session does not stand to reason. The party chief whip's explanation that they don't want to give 'legitimacy' to the budget by attending the session sounds more like an excuse than an argument. It is a constitutionally mandated responsibility of the MPs, regardless of their party affiliations, to represent their constituencies in parliament. And, what could be a better opportunity to speak for the people than the one being presented by the budget session of Jatiya Sangsad. We urge the AL leadership to join the parliament session without much ado. They have to realise that the JS is the house of the people, not of the government. People have elected their representatives to speak in parliament not to be absent from it. So, the AL's apparent failure to distinguish between the parliament and the government has only lowered the party's standing in the public eye. The AL MPs represent the people of their constituencies in the very least; and perhaps, more to the point, the country as a whole as the elected opposition. People are aware of the fact that the opposition is given limited space in parliament. The opposition has been critical of the role of the speaker and accused the ruling party of not giving them adequate space and time to make their points. But, in spite of the limitations, if the opposition attend the parliament, express their dissent on different aspects of the budget and put forward their suggestions, no matter what contribution they made it would have gone down very well with the people. The AL has boycotted the parliament for months together and is largely responsible for making it dysfunctional. There is still more than a year left for the party to prove its commitment to parliamentary democracy and make up for their unheard voice through skillful articulation at this point in time with an eye to the next general election which are not far away. The budget session is where anything under the sun can be discussed, so it gives the AL a major opportunity to make their presence felt. The question circulating in the public mind is: what has the AL gained by not attending the majority of JS sessions. Moreover, participation in parliament does not preclude other options of voicing dissent such as staging public rallies and forming human chains.
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