Editorial
Stop this slide into vulgarity, immediately
Speaker's role most unbecoming
Unparliamentary is a very mild depiction of what spewed from the mouth of a BNP lawmaker, Pintu, in the floor of the parliament. It causes one's head to sink in shame to hear such lewd and coarse remarks uttered by those that are supposed to epitomise dignity and good behaviour. One wonders whether there is nothing more worthwhile for the parliamentarians than embarking upon character assassination and vilification of another member of the parliament. He has our fullest contempt for what he has done to the reputation of the parliament, to politics and politicians.It is a sad commentary on how our politics has regressed over the years. First we witnessed the unholy nexus between the criminals and the politicians that contributed to the criminalisation of our politics. And now we are witnessing with great anguish the vulgarisation of politics in the sanctum of our democracy, the Jatiyo Sangshad. It has no doubt reduced the parliament to the status of the market square and undermined its image in the public mind. And the person who is entrusted to ensure the decorum in the parliament has failed in his job. Now take the Speaker's role. Did he play his part to ensure that the sanctity of the House was not defiled? We think not. In fact, he afforded additional time to the aberrant legislator that he used not to speak on the budget, for which he was given the floor in the first place, but to continue with his vulgar and filthy remarks. And while it was within the Speaker's power to expunge then and there the remarks, and which even his party members, namely the LGRD and Law ministers, had pointed out as possible options for him, he either deliberately paid no heed to them or willingly ignored their suggestions. Were the tasteless remarks of the BNP lawmaker so unintelligible as to be beyond the Speaker's comprehension to merit further examination at a later time by him? By doing so he provided the leeway to the MP and helped in vulgarisation of the parliament. It must be mentioned though that the riposte of the Leader of the Opposition to a remark by a ruling party MP earlier, something that was uncalled for given her stature, brought her unnecessarily into the verbal fray. Political leaders, particularly the parliamentarians must be warned that such bawdy behaviours are bringing their image down in the public estimation. If they often complain as to why the people think and speak so poorly of them they do not have to go very far to find the answer.
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