<div><span style="font-size: 1rem;"><b>The ruling party Awami League, one of the largest and oldest parties of Bangladesh, is marking its 73rd founding anniversary today, June 23.&nbsp;</b></span><br></div><div><br></div><div>On this day, June 23, 1949, supporters of Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy formed the Awami Muslim League at Rose Garden in Dhaka’s KM Das Lane.</div><div><br></div><div>Having moved out of the Muslim League, progressive leaders and workers floated the Awami Muslim League and then, in a process of secularization, the word "Muslim" was later dropped from the name of the party. This was the beginning of the Awami League in 1955.</div><div><br></div><div>Maulana Abdul Hamid Khan Bhashani and Shamsul Haq of Tangail were the first president and general secretary, respectively, of the party. Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was named joint secretary while he was in jail.</div><div><br></div><div>In 1956, Suhrawardy, one of the founders of the party, took over as Pakistan’s prime minister. He was in office for a year. In 1957, with differences developing between Bhashani and Suhrawardy, the latter left the Awami League and formed the National Awami Party following the Kagmari conference.</div><div><br></div><div>Following the coup d’etat by General Ayub Khan in October 1958, the Awami League and all other parties were banned in Pakistan. Suhrawardy and Bangabandhu were arrested. The latter was to suffer repeated incarceration during the decade-long regime of Ayub Khan. Following his release from prison, Suhrawardy travelled to Beirut, where he died in December 1963.</div><div><br></div><div>Bangabandhu assumed the leadership of the Awami League through the council of the party in March 1966, a month after he had announced the Six-Point program in Lahore. It was not long before he became the undisputed leader and architect of independent Bangladesh.</div><div><br></div><div>The Awami League, under Bangabandhu’s leadership, won the first-ever general elections held in Pakistan in December 1970. It won 167 seats out of the 169 earmarked for the then East Pakistan. In the 313-seat national assembly, it thus had a clear majority. Conspiracies by the Pakistani ruling junta of General Yahya Khan and People’s Party chairman Z.A. Bhutto, however, led to a repudiation of the election results. Prior to his arrest by the Pakistan army in the early hours of 26 March 1971, Bangabandhu declared Bangladesh’s independence. The Awami League was proscribed by the regime.</div><div><br></div><div>However, the party waged a tortuous War of Liberation between March and December 1971. With Syed Nazrul Islam as acting president of Bangladesh and Tajuddin Ahmad as prime minister, what came to be known as the Mujibnagar government successfully waged a guerrilla war against the occupation Pakistan army. Bangabandhu, who had been put on trial in erstwhile West Pakistan and sentenced to death by the Yahya junta, was released on 8 January 1972 and triumphantly returned to a sovereign Bangladesh two days later.</div><div><br></div><div>After the assassination of Bangabandhu and most of his family members on August 15, 1975 and the killing of four national leaders inside the Dhaka Central Jail on November 3 the same year, the Awami League was left without a clear leader and the party split into many factions. Syeda Zohra Tajuddin bravely tried to keep the party together through those uncertain times.</div><div><br></div><div>Bangabandhu's daughter Sheikh Hasina took the helm of the Awami League after returning to the country from exile in May 1981 and set about reorganizing the party.</div><div><br></div><div>Since then, she has been leading the party for four decades, formed the government four times, and waged various crucial democratic movements.</div><div><br></div><div>Having led the country to freedom, the Awami League after liberation was in power for around three and a half years before the assassination of Bangabandhu, and for five years from 1996 to 2001 and since 2009 to the present under the leadership of Sheikh Hasina, reports BSS.</div><div><br></div><div>After its defeat in the 2001 general election, the Awami League waged a successful movement against the then BNP-Jamaat led alliance government.</div><div><br></div><div>In 2007, the military-backed caretaker government declared a state of emergency and Awami League President Sheikh Hasina and top leaders of the party were arrested. As a result, the party fell into a crisis during that period.</div><div><br></div><div>Overcoming all hurdles and hostilities, the Awami League and a grand alliance under the leadership of Sheikh Hasina achieved a landslide victory at the December 29, 2008 national election. On January 6, 2009, the grand alliance led by the Awami League formed the government.</div><div><br></div><div>Sheikh Hasina became prime minister for the third time when the Awami League formed the government after winning the January 5, 2014 general elections.</div><div><br></div><div>In the general election on December 30, 2018, the people of Bangladesh again gave their mandate to the Awami League to form a government for a record third straight term. Awami League President Sheikh Hasina became the prime minister for the fourth time and the third time in a row.</div><div><br></div><div>As per its electoral pledges, the Awami League government has been working relentlessly to build a poverty and hunger free, advanced and ICT- based, prosperous Bangladesh and thus to turn the country into a developed one by 2041.</div><div><br></div><div>bnbd24/TR</div>