Bangladesh Nationalist Party on Monday iterated that it would not join an all-party interim government that might be formed by November 15.
‘Let us make it clear that BNP would never participate in the all-party interim government, nor take part in elections under it,’ BNP acting secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir said at a news briefing at the party central office on Monday afternoon.
At another press conference earlier in the day, Fakhrul alleged that the government was not taking any steps to end the stalemate over the polls-time government rather forcing the opposition to take to the streets.
‘We want resolution of the crisis through discussions. We will join the discussion anytime if they [government] set a specific date and agree to discuss the issue of a non-party election-time administration’, Fakhrul said.
He was speaking to reporters at the BNP’s central office at Naya Paltan Monday.
Fakhrul said the 90-day countdown to the elections had already begun but the government was holding power ‘illegally’ by ‘flexing muscles.’
He said the people had taken to the streets in support of the opposition’s movement for a ‘non-party caretaker’ government but the government was indifferent to their demand.
In reply to a question, Fakhrul said, ‘The prime minister is spreading confusion over discussion. Withdrawal of general strike cannot be a condition for discussion.’
Fakhrul said, ‘Awami League had enforced hartal for 173 days demanding the caretaker government before…Many people were killed during those hartals. How could she ask us now to withdraw hartal?’
The BNP secretary general said his party did not want bloodshed [during hartals] but it was the government which was killing people.
‘If the government does not take any steps for resolution [of the caretaker issue], there would be no option left for us but to continue the movement, including hartals.’
About the businessmen’s proposal for a ‘secretary general-level’ discussion between the two major parties, Fakhrul said, ‘The BNP chairperson has accepted the proposal but what is the response of the prime minister?
To a question about the prime minister’s proposal that the opposition colud ask for any ministry in interim government, Fakhrul said: ‘She is playing a trick. She talks like this but when specific proposals [from BNP] go to her, she does not talk’.
Fakhrul said that the prime minister had invited the opposition leader to talks over dinner on an interim government, but, he said, ‘We would not talk about an interim government but on caretaker government’.
Fakhrul censured the comments prime minister had made on Sunday at a rally quoting a report of CNN that BNP and its leaders were involved in the BDR carnage at Pilkhana. He termed Sheikh Hasina’s claims ‘untrue’ and ‘motivated’. Fakhrul said it was not a CNN report but an individual post on CNN-iReport.
-With New Age input
