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Political parties in Bangladesh have totally failed to uphold the interest of the citizens, Prof Muhammad Yunus, managing director of Grameen Bank Limited, told a semi­nar yesterday.

"Political leaders are holding the nation back and the culture needs to be changed," he said while chairing a session of a seminar on follow-up to Saarc Summit decisions concern­ing the Saarc Social Charter.

Political leaders do not have insights into different national goals. Dialogues within the political parties are needed to find ways on how to achieve these goals, he said adding the citizens must take charge and ask the government to behave positively.

The Grameen Bank MD urged the citizens to play a role in bringing about a change in the present situa­tion. "There can be a tremendous change if the citizens individually feel like 'I can make a change'."

He pointed out that the Saarc Social Charter missed out on the role of the local government, which can be a very important part of the social charter and crucial to its implementation.

The South Asia Centre for Policy Studies (Saceps) and Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD) co-organised the seminar at Brac Centre audito­rium in Dhaka yesterday.