DACCA: The Awami League chief, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, said today [Oct 20] that the coming elections would be a crucial test for the people of Bengal to decide whether they wanted to live a dignified life or continue to languish in misery and poverty as slaves.

Addressing a big gathering at Dumni in Tejgaon Police Station, some 15 miles from Dacca city, Sheikh Sahib asked the people of Bengal to show to the world through votes in the election, which was in fact a referendum, that they could no more be deprived of their due rights and privileges and would be master of their own destiny and fate.

He told the cheering crowd, who had come to the meeting from far-flung unions in processions, that the six point programme was nothing but a pragmatic programme drawn up to ensure justice … The programme if implemented would put an end once for all to the continued exploitation, oppression and suppression which had reigned supreme all the 23 years.

He said that if they failed to realise their demands through votes, he would not hesitate to plunge into mass movement to secure their rights, for, he said, if the people of Bengal failed to wrest their usurped rights, they would continue to remain like slaves in East Pakistan, which had so long been treated as a colony. — Agency

Published in Dawn, October 21st, 2020