The Bangladesh Nationalist Party led-opposition alliance on Thursday warned that the people would not forgive the incumbent Election Commission if it held the next polls under the present government. Addressing a protest rally, BNP acting secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir asked the EC to work for holding the elections under a ‘non-party’ government.
‘Otherwise, they [chief election commissioner and his deputies] will be blacklisted,’ he said.
He said the EC was trying to mislead the people by amending the Representation of People Order and electoral code of conduct and asked it to keep the amended RPO and electoral code of conduct in its ‘pockets’.
Fakhrul announced demonstrations at upazila level across the country for Saturday demanding release
of the leaders and activists of the alliance arrested during the 60-hour hartal and withdrawal of the cases filed against them.
Dhaka city unit of the BNP-led ‘18-party’ alliance organised the rally at Suhrawardy Udyan in the afternoon as part of its countrywide programme to protest against ‘killing of leaders and activists of the alliance and attacks on them by law enforcers and Awami terrorists’ between October 25 and October 29.
Fakhrul said the telephone conversation between the prime minister and the opposition leader was leaked by televisions, radios and other media and termed it ‘unlawful and criminal offense.’
He said the media should have taken permission from the persons involved in the conversation as well as from the home ministry before making it public.
Fakhrul said a day before the phone talks were leaked, the information minister had stated that they possessed the conversation in recorded form and would disclose it before people.
Fakhrul claimed that the telephone conversation had proved that Khaleda Zia could reply to questions over any issues raised by the prime minister.
He said that the question had arisen whether the information minister had been involved in leaking the conversation in favour of the government or people.
Fakhrul said although the government was talking loudly about dialogue, actually it did not want talks or consensus.
He said the ruling party was trying to mislead the people by giving lip service to dialogue as it wanted to hold dialogue on an ‘all-party interim’ government.
Fakhrul said the prime minister during the phone conversation with the opposition leader had repeatedly called for discussion on an ‘all-party’ government and requested Khaleda Zia to withdraw the hartal to discuss it.
Fakhrul said the BNP chairperson had repeatedly said that she would withdraw the hartal if the prime minister agreed to talk on a ‘non-party’ government but the prime minister did not agree.
He censured information minister Hasanul Huq Inu for his comments that Khaleda would have to go to Pakistan ‘in a Jamaat-Hefazat train’ if she missed the ‘train to dialogue’.
The acting BNP secretary general asked Inu to ‘apologise’ to the people for the ‘misdeeds’ he had committed before 1975 by unleashing the Ganabahini and taking up
arms against the government of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.
He alleged that many meritorious youths had lost their lives at Inu’s instructions.
BNP standing committee member Moudud Ahmed said the 15th amendment to the constitution was ‘self-contradictory’ and the government had fallen into its own trap.
Standing committee member Khandaker Mosharraf Hossain urged the people to prepare lists of the men in the police and the administration who had carried out ‘repression’ on them.
Standing committee member MK Anwar said that the sooner the ruling party accepted the demand for ‘non-party’ government the better. Otherwise, the exit of the ruling party would be ‘painful’, he said.
Presided over by 18-party alliance Dhaka city unit convener Sadeque Hossain Khoka, the protest rally was also addressed by BNP leaders Jamiruddin Sircar, Mirza Abbas, Rafiqul Islam Mia, Abdul
Moyeen Khan, Shamsuzzaman Dudu, Amanullah Aman, Barkatulla Bulu, Abdus Salam, Jamaat-e-Islami leader Syed Abdullah M Taher, JAGPA president Shafiul Alam Prodhan and Labour Party chairman Mustafizur Rahman Iran.
-With New Age Input
