Senior BNP leader Khandakar Mosharraf Hossain on Monday warned the government against indulging in “politics of confrontation”. “The ruling Awami League wants to cling to power forcibly. In a bid to make its mission a success, it is trying to fish in troubled waters. It will be solely responsible if the politics of confrontation takes place in the country due to this plot,” the BNP standing committee member told a meeting at the National Press Club. The meeting was organised by the All-party Student Unity of 90’s and it demanded release of detained BNP leaders.
Mosharraf said the Awami League was running the country in a similar way to the previous one-party BKSAL rule. The ruling party was habituated of extending all out support to alternative forces, he added.
Referring to the prevailing political standoff, he said restoration of the non-party caretaker government (CG) provision in the charter was the only way to get rid of the situation.
“We urge the government not to play hide-and-seek over the issue of a non-partisan caretaker government. Otherwise, the present political impasse cannot end,” he said.
In a separate programme, the BNP leader alleged that the government wanted to prolong its tenure by imposing a state of emergency in the country.
“The country has turned into a jail and countrymen were being held hostage by the government’s politics of vengeance,” he told a human chain programme on the same issue organised by Agricultural Association of Bangladesh (AAB) in front of the National Press Club.
“The evil ploy adopted during the one-party BKSAL rule has once again playing on the government’s mind. And so it has divided the nation into many parts in the name of the spirit of the country’s Liberation War,” he alleged.
The opposition’s intensive movement would force the government to accede to the BNP’s demands of release of detained party leaders and holding the next general election under a non-party CG, he said.
Mosharraf Hossain said the publication of the Amar Desh daily was stopped and its acting editor Mahmudur Rahman was arrested in order to cover up the government’s misdeeds and corruption records, he said.
“The government has failed to run the country and boost its democratic practices properly. Our countrymen have to be united in waging a one-point oust-the-government movement on the streets,” he said.
Another standing committee member of BNP, Rafiqul Islam Mia, also accused the ruling party of heading towards a one-sided general election by sending opposition partymen to jail on fabricated charges.
“Several death row convicts were being freed by presidential clemency while opposition party men were being sent to jail without any justification. All this was being done to hold a unilateral general election,” he said.
The nationalist forces as well as the countrymen will have to hit the streets with all out effort for unseating the government immediately, he said.
He also demanded immediate and unconditional release of Amar Desh acting editor Mahmudur Rahman and said it has to be ensured for the sake of the freedom of press.
He was addressing a human chain, demanding withdrawal of the cases lodged against BNP leaders and holding of the next general election under the CG management in front of the National Press Club.
Courtesy of The Independent
