Staff Correspondent

Some Bangladesh Chhatra League leaders, who went on forced retirement and were excluded from the present committee due to age bar, felt undervalued and demanded due places in the hierarchy of the party or any of its wings.

They vented their frustration and anger at a chaotic meeting with senior Awami League leaders at the residence of acting president Zillur Rahman on Saturday. Some of them bitterly criticised the former BCL president and some AL leaders for their role in fixing the upper age limit for Chhatra League leadership at 29 years.

The step was designed to cripple the party s student wing and hand the leadership over to a band of inexperienced and unqualified people in the name of bringing in fresh blood in the leadership, they alleged. The acting president and general secretary of the party gave a patience hearing to the retired student leaders and assured them of reviewing their cases in the next central working committee meeting.

The party would give them due recognition and try to accommodate them in suitable places either in AL or any other front organisation. A number of experienced student leaders, who were hoping for top posts, were suddenly dropped from the committee citing that they were overage.

The decision led to an irreparable leadership vacuum, former vice president of BCL Rafiqul Islam Kotwal said, demanding prestigious portfolio for the former student leaders. As AL organising secretary Abdul Mannan attempted to say something, former student leaders stopped and shouted at him, identifying him as one of the plotters. Mazhar Anam, who retired as BCL organising secretary, alleged some vested leaders in AL misguided party president Sheikh Hasina to form such an inactive committee to destroy the student wing which has a long and glorious history of movement.

Another leader Hemayet Uddin said that as the party decided to exclude the overage leaders, it should hold the council regularly to change leadership. AL organising secretary Mannan asked why the retired student leaders failed to raise the points to Hasina before she was taken to jail. As the situation turned a bit chaotic, Zillur Rahman and Syed Ashraful Islam intervened and brought the situation under control. We will work out ways to rehabilitate you in the party mainstream politics with due honour, Ashraf said.

I will tell the acting general secretary to include the issue in the agenda for next central working committee, Zillur told the former BCL leaders. He however said portfolio was not important for working for the party and the people. You need to get Sheikh Hasina freed first of all and then we will sit together to resolve the issues your pointed out, he was quoted as saying in the meeting.

The last committee of Bangladesh Chhatra League was formed in 2006, keeping leaders, who crossed 29 years, at bay. The age bar was fixed amid long-standing demands for freeing the student politics from overage leaders and welcomed by many in and outside the party.

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