ELECTION-TIME NON-PARTY GOVERNMENT
Meet demand by 48hrs or face ouster: Khaleda
Staff Correspondent
The Bangladesh Nationalist Party chairperson, Khaleda Zia, on Saturday issued a 48-hour ultimatum to the government to accept the demand for an election-time non-party government.
Otherwise, Khaleda, also leader of the opposition in parliament, threatened to spell out programmes that would force the government to quit.
She issued the ultimatum at a large rally at Shapla Chattar at Motijheel in the city organised by the BNP-led ‘18-party’ alliance.
Khaleda asked the prime minister to make a specific announcement that the next general election would be held under a non-party neutral government.
Before announcing the ultimatum, Khaleda asked her party activists and allies if they were ready to stay on at Shapla Chattar for 24 hours to realise the demand, the activists at the rally stood up shouting ‘yes’.
The BNP chief assured the activists that she would have stayed on but as Hefajat-e-Islam has a programme for today, she was issuing a 48-hour ultimatum to the government.
She wanted to know from the gathering whether they would turn up in case she asked them to do so after the 48-hour deadline was over. The leaders and activists in the rally replied ‘yes’.
Khaleda warned that if the government did not allow BNP and its allies to hold rally ignoring the ultimatum, they would not wait for permission. They would sit wherever possible, she said. She said the government was staging a drama in the name of dialogue.
The prime minister was offering dialogue when the Ulama had united, she added.
The government was also talking about dialogue to divert the attention of the people who were aggrieved and when workers were carrying out movement.
Khaleda said talking about dialogue was not enough. The government must say clearly that next general election would be held under a non-party neutral government, she said adding that if the announcement was made, there would be no need for much discussion.
She said the prime minister should announce in a televised-address that election would be held under a non-party government.
Khaleda said an atmosphere must be created before discussion by releasing the alliance leaders and activists, withdrawing cases against them, announcing a specific agenda of the proposed dialogue that election would be held under a non-party government.
The BNP chief said they were ready for discussion to keep democracy functioning.
She said the prime minister was asking her to join dialogue, a ‘photo session’ and to join parliament. ‘Maybe, she [Hasina] will one day invite me to tea,’ the BNP chief said.
Khaleda invited Hasina to her residence to discuss over tea about a framework for a non-party neutral government to resolve the crisis.
The BNP chief said she hoped the government would not obstruct Hefajat-e-Islam’s ‘peaceful’ programme today and warned the government of the consequences if it tried to do so.
She said as a Muslim she would extend support to Hefajat’s programme against indecent remarks on the Prophet (SM).
Khaleda accused the government of carrying out propaganda against Hefajat by branding it ‘militant, Al-Qaeda and terrorist’.
She said Ulama had united and they had no politics. She alleged that militants remained in the Awami League and asked the prime minister to recover firearms from the ‘militants’ hiding in the AL to curb terrorism.
The BNP chairperson said the prime minister should not talk about humanity as ‘no acts of brutality could match the killing of people by oars and sticks, gun powder and enforced disappearance, including that of BNP leader Ilias Ali.’
About the prime minister’s request to postpone the day’s rally of the alliance and donate the money meant for the rally to the Savar tragedy victims, Khaleda claimed that the BNP did not need money for holding rallies. ‘Rather it is Awami League which hires people for a rally.’
The BNP chairperson also asked the government to stop the coal-based electricity project in Bagherhat to save Sundarban.
Witnesses said activists of Jamaat-e-Islami and Islami Chhatra Shibir were seen very active in the rally and its surroundings. Many of them were guarding the entrances to the venue with sticks.
They took control of the entrances to Motijheel, at Fakirerpul, Arambagh and Purana Paltan, shouting slogans for the release of their leaders and activists, including war crimes convicts Delwar Hossain Sayedee and Abdul Quader Molla.
Some activists wearing headbands of Shibir at Fakirerpul raised a banner that read ‘Bansher Kella (bamboo fortress)—Help revolution….’
The government has already asked the authorities to block the controversial facebook page ‘Bansher Kella’ run by Shibir for carrying out propaganda against its rivals and over various sensitive issues.
Activists of BNP and its major ally Jamaat mainly filled Matijheel and its surroundings—Fakirerpul, Ittefaq crossing, Arambagh and Baitul Mukarram north gate. They alleged that many BNP-Jamaat activists could not attend the rally as they were stopped at different places on the way.
Wearing headbands and holding placards with portraits of BNP founder Ziaur Rahman, chairperson Khaleda Zia and its senior vice-chairman Tarique Rahman, the party men poured in the venue in their thousands from different areas of Dhaka and outlying districts. Tight security was in place at the venue and its surroundings.
Presided over by Dhaka city BNP convener Sadeque Hossain Khoka, the rally was also addressed, among others, by party leaders Khandaker Mosharaf Hossain, Moudud Ahmed, Hannan Shah, MK Anwar, Rafiqul Islam Mia, Abdul Moyeen Khan, Zainul Abdin Farroque, Abdus Salam, Jamaat-e-Islami acting Ameer Mokbul Ahmed, Liberal Democratic party chairman Oli Ahmed, Bangladesh Jatiya Party chairman Andalib Rahman, Islami Oikya Jote chairman Abdul Latif Nezami, Khelafat Majlish ameer Mohammad Ishaq, JAGPA president Shafiul Alam Prodhan and Kalyan party chairman Syed M Ibrahim.
