আনুপাতিক হারে আসনের ব্যাপারে বঙ্গবন্ধু
২৬ সেপ্টেম্বর ১৯৫৫
করাচী
The constituent assembly of Pakistan:
Sheikh Mujibur Rahman (East Bengal: Muslim): Sir, supporting the amendment of Sardar Fazlul Karim, I must congratulate my friends on that side for having defeated Machiavelli. They have defeated Machiavelli by their tactics. You know, sir, we who are in this House have been elected in the last election by a single transferable vote. You know Mr. Fazlul Haq got 103 votes and Mr. Suhrawardy got 93 Votes and so we, the 12 Members of the Awami League who are the Members of this House, have come though single transferable votes. But by the majority vote there would be no representation of the 93 Members of East Bengal here. In, indirect election, there is always a single transferable vote or proportional representation. But in direct election, only the question of Majority of votes arises. Now, it is sure that out of 310 Members of the West Pakistan Legislative Assembly. Muslim Leaguers are the people who will be at the helm of affairs. So, they would get at least 275 seats or something like that. They will be in absolute majority. There is no doubt about it. There will be very few from opposition. In Opposition there will be people like Malik Firoz Khan Noon, Mian Iftikharuddin and one or two from Frontier, one or two from Sind, two or three persons from Bahawalpur. In this way they can get 36 persons if there is a single transferable vote. Sir, I must congratulate my friends on the opposite and particularly Nawab Gurmani for whom I have great respect for his tactics for ousting all the opposition. There is no opposition in the House of 310 Members. I understand why they are doing it. They do not want to tolerate the opposition of 20 to 25 Members in the House of 310. The Opposition is there to criticize you and bring to your notice the defects of the Government. You might be benefited by their suggestion. Though we are only 12 to 13 Members on this side and you are passing each and everything as you like, but still sometimes you are accepting some of our suggestions. Sometime on our suggestion, you can make changes in your amendments. Just now Mr. Firoz Khan Noon has given you details of the votes of the districts of the Punjab and he has tried to show you that not a single of the party of Mr. Noon can be elected. At least there are one or two Members of the Awami League in the Punjab. All will be excluded and there will be one party. Then what is the necessity of election? Yon will get the whole of 310 seats. Do one thing. Bring the nomination system. That is a very nice thing. No use spending money of the poor people of Pakistan. You are in an absolute majority in the House, you can manage it. Manage the nomination system.
The Honourable Pir Ali Mohammad Rashdi (Sind: Muslim): Speak slowly that we may follow.
Sheikh Mujibur Rahman: Sir, I am speaking very slowly. I am not a very good speaker like my friend, Mr. Rashdi. He knows very good English.
The Honourable Pir Ali Mohammad Rashdi: He dramatizes!
Sheikh Mujibur Rahman: I congratulate you for your speech. You know very good English. Sir, I was saying that there is no necessity of spending the money of the poor people. There is no use of this farce. Sir, we have seen the last elections of Punjab and Frontier and some other places. They are some sort of elections at least, but it is not absolutely an election if, say out of 148 persons elect 10 persons and the other 6 do not get a single representative. You are speaking about democracy. We know you are 60 members in the House of 80. Ask my friend, Mr. Yusuf Haroon, to come with an amendment that there is no use of election districtwise, only do it by nomination by the Governor of West Pakistan province. That way you can vote for it. You have got very good friends of East Bengal and you are giving them Ministries and all sorts of things. You can pass it that the 310 members will be nominated by His Excellency the Governor of West Pakistan. That would be a very nice thing. There will be nobody to question you because you are in a majority, You preach democracy. Do not make a mockery of democracy. When there is indirect election we see there is always Young by single transferable vote or there is proportional representation. You can easily understand and I ask my friends that this is not good that you want to oust all the opposition. I know you are very powerful people. I know you are central Government and the provinces are in your hands and you have given 18 months time and for 18 months this Assembly continue. You will have majority and you can make it 18 years that you have done in East Bengal for seven years. We have shouted for seven years and after seven years you gave me elections and we defeated the Muslim League. In that way, you can do it for 18 years. I request that do not make mockery of election, do not spend the money of the poor people of your country. Do not do it like that. I appeal to Sardar Amir Azam, though he has not got a chance to become a fullfledged Minister he is a state Minister but I hope he will become a full Minister very soon. I request him to accept the amendment of Sardar Fazlul Karim. Thank you.
Reference:
Iqbal, S. (1997) Sheikh Mujib in Parliament (1955-58), p. 52-58, Dhaka, Agami Prakashani