Awami League General Secretary and Road Transport and Bridges Minister Obaidul Quader on Thursday said that the main goal of the ruling Awami League is to work for the welfare of the toiling people of the country.

"The goal of AL is to change the fate of farmers, workers and the toiling people," he said in a statement sent to the media on Thursday, protesting the `misleading and provocative statements` of BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir.

Recalling BNP-Jamaat`s tenure, the AL general secretary said that when the BNP-Jamaat evil forces were in power, the people of the country had to live in misery due to their misrule.

"Today, they talked about the rights of working people. But they never increased the wages of the workers while in power," he added.

Highlighting BNP-Jamaat`s atrocities, he said this evil force shot dead laborers who were agitating for salary and bonus, killed farmers who were agitating for fertilizer and murdered ordinary people who were agitating for electricity.

Thus, the BNP-Jamaat clique crushed Bangladesh by holding people hostage at gunpoint, he said.

Obaidul Quader said that they made the life of working people miserable by shutting down different factories, including the Adamjee Jute Mills.

On the other hand, Awami League has increased the salaries of garment workers as well as tea workers after coming to power, he said, adding that the living standard of all, including working people, has improved.

Quader further said that Awami League always comes to power with people`s vote.

Awami League is not like a political party which came into being from the pocket of a military dictator, he said, adding that this party led the struggles for establishment of all rights, including democratic rights, of the people of this country, he said.

In continuation of that, Awami League is working to establish people`s voting rights and other rights, he added.

He said that the 12th national election, held on January 7 last, was fairer than all the elections held in the country after 1975.

"Awami League has come to power through elections by ensuring people`s right to vote and is running the country with people`s mandate," he said.

Obaidul Quader said that BNP had always taken away the voting rights of the people to grab the power. "For this, they are afraid of elections and they don`t want to participate in it," he added.

"Once they excluded half a crore voters from the list to make smooth their way to grab power. They also created 1.23 crore fake voters," he said.

He said that issues like democracy and right to vote do not fit in the mouth of those who undertook different tactics to snatch the voting rights of the people.

"The main objective of BNP`s politics is to seize power by any means," he continued.

They seized state power and used it illegally to make Bangladesh a dysfunctional state through corruption and looting, he said.

Bangladesh had the stigma of being the champion of corruption for five times because of BNP, he said.