PAKISTAN OBSERVER
31st July 1957
Bhashani Stabbed A.L. In The Back
By A STAFF CORREPONDENT
The Awami League General Secretary Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, yesterday (Monday) made a virulent attack on Maulana Abdul Hamid Khan Bhashani, the erstwhile President of the Awami League. Speaking at a press conference, which he termed in his handout to be of great significance”, held at Mr. Rahman’s ministerial room in the Secretariat, the Awami League General Secretary said that Maulana Bhashani had stabbed the organisation in the back by resigning from the presidentship when the party was contesting two by-elections in Sylhet and Barisal.
Mr. Rahman said it was evident from the recent activities of the Maulana that he was acting in a pre-planned manner to sabotage the organization and to form a new party “with the support of some people”, when asked to identify those “people”, he said, that he did not want to mention them by name: “you have seen them at the recent convention”.
He referred to the July 16 statement of Maulana Bhashani wherein he had slated the awami league coalition government for their failure to implement the pledges they had given to the people at the time of the last general elections. The statement was “a propaganda and not only far from truth, but silly, malicious and motivated,” he said.
Sheikh Mujib said the main plank of Maulana Bhashani’s criticism was the foreign policy pursued by Mr.Suhrawardy’s government. Maulana Bhashani’s opposition to the foreign policy was based on three points: policy of friendship with all countries of the world ratification of foreign policy by the parliament and the failure of the present government’s Kashmir policy.
Mr. Rahman said that Mr. Suhrawardy himself had declared time and again that Pakistan had goodwill for all and malice towards none. Mr. Suhrawardy’s recent visit to China was cited as an example.
As regards the second point of criticism, he said the foreign policy had also all the members of the United Nations security council except one supported Pakistan. All these falsified the charges of Maulana Bhashani in so far as the foreign policy was concerned.