The Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP)-led 18-Party Alliance has declared another spell of a 83-hour countrywide road-rail-waterway blockade from 6am on Saturday to mount pressure on the government to hold the next general election under a non-party poll-time interim management and postpone the schedule for the 10th Parliamentary election. Starting from 6am on Saturday, the fifth spell of blockade programme will continue across the country until 6pm on Tuesday, BNP leader Nazrul Islam Khan said.
Khan, who is also a member of the standing committee of the party, was addressing a press conference held at party chairperson Khaleda Zia’s Gulshan office in the capital on the last day of the fourth spell of blockade on Tuesday.
“The government is planning to hold a stage-managed general election. It is, at the same time, indulging in acts of violence, such as killings and abductions, by unleashing attacks on the Opposition party activists to suppress the ongoing anti-government movement,” he alleged.
Khan said that the people of the country are struggling on the streets to establish their rights to vote freely while the ruling Awami League has let loose the joint forces and its armed cadres to make its mission a success, he added.
“We have no alternative but to organise the countrywide blockade programme to protest against the government’s move to hold a lopsided national poll,” he said.
Referring to the speech made by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Monday, Khan said that the PM and her loyal Election Commission (EC) have disgraced themselves by declaring that 154 MP aspirants have been elected unopposed in the 10th Parliamentary poll, scheduled forJanuary 5.
“The PM and the EC will never be able to hide this stigma of the blueprint election,” he warned.
Terming the PM’s speech as provocative, Khan said the joint forces as well as the ruling party’s armed cadres are carrying out barbaric attacks in the country’s south-west and northern districts.
Responding to a query, Khan said the next government will be treated as a selected one if the Awami League forms the next administration with the 154 MPs who have been elected unopposed.
“We want an elected, accountable and responsible government through an inclusive and acceptable national poll. The people of the country will never accept the government if it is formed by unelected public representatives,” he added.
He also blamed the government for acts of violence in which a pro-blockade activist was killed while 722 were critically injured in attacks by law enforcement personnel across the country on Tuesday.
The police picked up 533 blockaders from different parts of the country and lodged cases implicating around 3,000 leaders and activists of the 18-Party Alliance in connection with several motivated criminal charges, he claimed.
Throwing light on the Opposition’s stand on the ongoing movement, Khan said the prevailing antigovernment campaign would be stopped if the government accepts the Opposition demand for election under a non-party management and postpones the schedule for the upcoming Parliamentary poll.
The BNP has chalked out the blockade programme from 6am on Saturday to 5pm on Tuesday taking into consideration the Christian community’s Christmas festival on Wednesday, he said.
The vehicles of the health directorate and the United Nations for the national immunisation programme, as well as the fire brigade, newspapers and ambulance services, will remain out of the purview of the blockade, Khan said.
From November 26, the 18-Party Alliance has already enforced 418 hours of road-rail-waterway blockades in a total of four spells — 71-hour, 131-hour, 144-hour and 72-hour — after the announcement of the election schedule on November 25. At least 78 people have been killed in different parts of the country during the antigovernment campaign.
-With The Independent input
