The organisational activities of the ruling Awami League remain almost stagnant although the party president, Sheikh Hasina, also the prime minister, has repeatedly called for strengthening the party at the grassroots level. At the AL central executive committee meeting on October 3, Hasina instructed the newly elected leaders to put in all their efforts to strengthen the party organisationally at the grassroots level to translate into reality its ‘charter for change’.

To overcome the organisational inertia, the party took a number of decisions at its first presidium meeting on July 31 and central working committee meeting on October 3, but the decisions have not yet been made effective. AL insiders have acknowledged that the party is facing organisational weaknesses at the field level as most of the ‘heavyweights’ became disillusioned after being excluded from the government and the party’s mainstream and also because of lack of initiatives by the new leadership, elected at the party’s triennial council session on July 24. The party leaders also failed to go on even a single tour to settle internal disputes at the grassroots level after the party assumed power on January 6 following a landslide victory in the December 29, 2008 parliamentary polls.

Organisational stagnation and bickering at different tiers of the party have caused concern among the party high-ups. Against this backdrop, the Awami League general secretary, Syed Ashraful Islam, is going to sit with the party’s departmental secretaries today at its Dhanmondi office to design plans to reactivate the party organisationally, sources said. At the meeting, Ashraf will assign the organising secretaries the task division-wise to put the house back in order, party insiders said.

AL joint general secretary, Mahbub-ul-Alam Hanif told New Age that they were looking for ways to bring the squabbles at grassroots level to an end and today’s meeting would discuss the problem. ‘The meeting will discuss assigning organising secretaries organisational tasks division-wise, tour of districts by central leaders and recruitment of members,’ he said. It would be the first meeting between the AL general secretary and the departmental secretaries more than three months after the party national council, although the party constitution stipulates that the general secretary shall call a meeting of the secretaries at least once a month.

The general secretary is vested by the constitution with the responsibilities of making arrangements to fully execute the decisions taken by the party presidium, executive committee and national committee. But no such initiatives are visible to implement the party decisions as yet. The meeting will also discuss the extended meeting of the party, likely to be held in November. The meeting will also set a timeframe for tour of the districts by the newly elected central leaders and member recruitment drives across the country.

-New Age