AL to dissolve Dhaka city unit
Staff Correspondent
The main opposition Awami League (AL) policymakers have decided in principle to dissolve the existing Dhaka city unit committee of the party and bring in new faces by dropping both Mohammad Hanif and Mofazzal Hossain Chowdhury Maya, president and general secretary respectively of the unit."We have no other alternative but to keep both Hanif and Maya out of the city unit as their conflict is so naked that it is damaging party activities," a top leader of the AL said yesterday. Asked about the fate of Hanif and Maya, he said, "They will not get any promotion in the party. It will be a bad precedence if they are given superior posts in the party central committee despite engaging in such personal conflicts." The AL leader said the party high command has already unofficially suspended organisational powers of both Hanif and Maya, and has given eight presidium members the responsibility of coordinating all activities of the party in eight parliamentary constituencies in the capital separately. The high command also asked the presidium members to complete formation of committees of 22 thanas and 100 wards in the next two weeks, for which conflict between Hanif and Maya reached its peak in the recent days. The present city unit committee will be dissolved after the thana and ward unit committees are formed. It is yet to be decided whether the city unit will be divided into two wings -- North and South-- instead of one as now, the party high-up said. He did not however want to be named. Another AL leader, also seeking anonymity said, "Party high-ups are too annoyed at the activities of the top leaders of the city unit. There is no reason why the party will keep them when they have miserably failed to launch any agitation in the capital on national issues or issues concerning the city dwellers." In the last three and a half years, the city AL did not take up a single programme even on the city residents' problems like crises of power, gas and water, he mentioned. On the feud between Hanif and Maya, he said, "It is more a personal conflict than a political one. Both want to prepare as mayoral candidate of Awami League in the next Dhaka City Corporation election." Meanwhile, Hanif's supporters have started collecting signatures of city unit leaders in a bid to show their majority in the 71-member existing committee. They have already taken signatures of 41 leaders who expressed solidarity with the city unit president, they claimed.
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