Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina yesterday said her government would do whatever beneficial for Bangladesh on the question of India's Tipaikmukh Dam.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. File Photo

She deplored that the Opposition Party, BNP, does not want a solution rather wants to keep the dam issue alive and play on it to mislead the people.

On formation of Parliamentary Team to be sent to Tipaimukh Dam site, she said the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Water Resources Ministry sought names of BNP MPs but, instead of naming their MPs, they sent names of experts and a Jamaat MP.

"Let BNP send its own team to visit the Tipaimukh site and submit its findings on the dam. The Parliamentary Committee will also visit and submit its report. Then we will take decision what will be the most beneficial for the people of Bangladesh," she said.

Sheikh Hasina was addressing a discussion meeting arranged by Bangladesh Awami League marking the ruling party's 60th founding anniversary at the Bangladesh-China Friendship Conference Centre with AL presidium member and Deputy Leader of the House Syeda Sajeda Chowdhury in the chair.

Mentioning the previous Awami League government's success in signing the Ganges Water Treaty with India, she expressed the confidence that the present government would also succeed in finding a solution regarding the Tipaimukh Dam protecting Bangladesh's interest. "Over the share of Ganges waters also BNP had played the same role and tried to mislead people instead of working to resolve the issue. Awami League had been successful in ensuring Bangladesh's share of Ganges waters, and this time also we will be able to protect Bangladesh's interest," she said.

Hasina, also the AL president, emphatically said that Awami League does not do politics compromising on interests of the country, which was proved in 2001 when Awami League was defeated through "conspiracy" in the then parliamentary elections only because it opposed selling off gas.

"We were defeated through conspiracy as we did not want to sell out country's gas," she told the meet.

Referring to a meeting in 2001 in Jamuna, the then official residence of the then caretaker government chief, Justice Latifur Rahman, where former US president Jimmy Carter, Sheikh Hasina and BNP chairperson Khaleda Zia were present, the PM said the matter of gas export also had come up for discussion.

"I had told them that people are the owner of the country's gas and other resources. It is the people who would decide over the selling of gas. I could not sell gas without fulfilling demand of the country' s people," she said.

- UNB, Dhaka