Staff correspondent
The Bangladesh Nationalist Party chairperson, Khaleda Zia, on Tuesday pledged to fight against corruption and violence if her party voted to power in the general elections slated for December 29.
Khaleda also called on the people to cast their vote for the party candidates in the ensuing national elections for what she said ‘to get rid of sufferings caused by the interim government and its political backers’.
‘We will take stern action against the persons, whoever they are, involved in corruption and violence,’ she told a rally at Bhasantek in the capital Tuesday evening. The incumbent government had tried to depoliticise the country in the name of anti-corruption drive, she added.
The former prime minister also addressed rallies in places, including Karwanbazar, Kalabagan, Hazaribagh, Lalbagh and Armanitola, and sought vote for party candidates — ASM Hannan Shah, Khandakar Mahbub Uddin Ahmed, Sahabuddin Ahmed, Nasir Uddin Ahmed Pintu, Habibun Nabi Khan Sohel and Shirin Akhter.
Several thousand people, including some curious onlookers, were present at each of the meeting venues, nearby roads and roofs as well as verandas.
Party men shouted slogans, welcoming their leader as it was her first visit to those areas after her release from one year imprisonment.
‘Beware of those who claimed that the present government was the outcome of their movement. In fact, they are carrying out the state affairs and forcing the people to buy rice at Tk 40 a kilogram and edible oil at Tk 120 a litre. If they come to power, such a situation will continue,’ Khaleda said.
‘So cast your vote for the BNP candidates as the December 29 election is an opportunity to get rid of sufferings created by the incumbents and their [political] backers.’
In last two years, the incumbent government had pushed the country towards a place as it was 20 years ago, she said. ‘Hundreds of thousands of people hardly get food every day because most of them are unemployed and essentials have become costlier.’
Without naming her arch political rival, Khaleda said they started doing ‘destructive’ politics to go to power by any means.
‘There was a party conspiring to foil the January 22 [2007] elections. Due to a lot of support for BNP-led alliance candidates across the country and fearing debacle in the ensuing polls, now they are hatching conspiracy to foil the December 29 elections,’ she said.
Courtesy: newagebd.com
