MANY Chhatra League leaders often share on social media the Prime Minister’s quote “let high principles and a simple way of living be your ideologies in life”. She had said this to Bangladesh Chhatra League many a time. But the pro-AL student body’s some leaders had other ideas. BCL now former president Rezwanul Haque Chowdhury Shovon and general secretary Golam Rabbani used to live in Dhaka University dorms but after getting the posts, they started living in flats in Kathalbagan and Hatirpool that cost Tk 70,000 and Tk 40,000 in rent, the newspapers reported. Rabbani started using a Toyota Noah the day after becoming the general secretary last year.
How is it possible that two leaders of a student wing of the political party in power managed to live such a lavish life of luxury since they are forbidden by the BCL Charter to work or own businesses? Unless their parents were multimillionaires or unless they indulged in unethical deals to make money – it is difficult for someone to maintain such an expensive lifestyle. Ten months after being selected to the top BCL posts, they declared a committee on May 13 that included a few married people, non-students, extortionists, expelled BCL men, drug dealers, and addicts, and former leaders and activists of Jatiyatabadi Chhatra Dal and Islami Chhatra Shibir, the newspapers reported.
The audacity of the diabolic duo in extorting money was apparent when they asked for a 4-6 percent cut of a Tk 1445 crore project at Jahangirnagar University. They also openly sold top posts in BCLs various top level committees for exorbitant sums. What’s worrying is that it took so much time to expel the duo who thought of their posts as ATMs with which to make money. It should serve as a warning to future leaders of the BCL that they should think twice before thinking of extortion or other dubious ways to make money.
We must say, the two ousted BCL leaders are the byproduct of present corrupt politics. When main stream of the politics is merged with corruption and other unethical deeds, at that time it’s impossible to keep the party’s student wing out of corruption.
