A senior Awami League (AL) leader has urged people not to distort the history of the Liberation War by describing the Mujibnagar government as an interim one. “We should know the real history of the then Mujibnagar government. It was not a temporary or rebel government but the first government of Bangladesh,” AL general secretary Syed Ashraful Islam said yesterday. Ashraful, who is also the public administration minister, was speaking at a rally organised to mark the historic Mujibnagar Day at Baidyanathtala in Meherpur. On this day in 1971, Bangladesh’s first government in exile was formed at the Baidyanathtala mango grove in Meherpur in the   then Kushtia district. The place was later renamed Mujibnagar in tribute to Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, who had been declared as the president of the government-in-exile.
Syed Nazrul Islam was appointed the acting president in the absence of Bangabandhu. Tajuddin Ahmad was appointed the first Prime Minister, while Captain M Mansur Ali and AHM Quamaruzzaman were made cabinet members. The successful leadership of the core cabinet was instrumental in steering the Liberation War to victory on December 16, 1971. Also yesterday, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, along with her party leaders, paid tributes to Bangabandhu at Dhanmondi in Dhaka on the occasion of Mujibnagar Day.
Among others, AL advisory council members Tofail Ahmed and Yusuf Hossain Humayun, presidium members Begum Matia Chowdhury, Mohammad Nasim, Obaidul Quader, were present.