Opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) will issue its formal reaction to the speech of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina following its Standing Committee meeting scheduled for Saturday night.
Opposition BNP on Friday night said there is nothing new in the Prime Minister’s address to the nation calling for an all-party polls-time government with the participation of all political parties. “In the Prime Minister’s speech, there’s no outline about the head of the poll-time interim government. Such proposal she had floated earlier in London,” BNP acting secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir told a press briefing at party chairperson’s Gulshan office.
He said, “All the opposition parties, including BNP and the people of Bangladesh, have been demanding that the next parliamentary elections be held under a non-party government. This issue (non-party interim govt) is very important for the nation, people and democracy.”
Fakhrul said Prime Minister’s speech will be scrutinised in details in the party and alliance forums, and then BNP will come up with its formal reaction and stance.
Asked whether they were rejecting the Prime Minister’s speech, the BNP spokesperson said, “What I’ve said is our instant reaction. We aren’t saying anything in details right now.”
About BNP’s ally Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami’s official reaction, Fakhrul said, “It would be their own stance. We’ll give our reaction after discussions with the alliance partners.”
Earlier, BNP standing committee member Tariqul Islam said they would express their reaction to the Prime Minister’s speech after the party’ s standing committee meeting scheduled for Saturday.
However, several top BNP leaders said the main opposition would not join any poll under any interim government to be headed by Sheikh Hasina.
But some high-ranking BNP leaders have already said that Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in her address to the nation last night showed a degree of flexibility on her previously taken position on an election-time government.
In an instant reaction soon after her televised address, they however, strongly felt that the prime minister did not go far enough and that she needs to move “one step forward” on the poll-time government issue to resolve the ongoing political stalemate.
Talking to The Independent, some BNP stalwarts categorically said that there was nothing new in the speech of Sheikh Hasina as she totally ignored the opposition demand for restoration of a non-party and neutral caretaker government to oversee the next general elections.
The BNP leaders said that their party’s Standing Committee would meet Saturday evening at BNP chairperson’s Gulshan office to review in detail the speech of the prime minister and only then the party would come up with a formal reaction to it.
In his personal reaction, BNP Standing Committee member Brig Gen (Retd) ASM Hannan Shah said the proposal of the prime minister to form an all-party interim government reflected a shift in her previously held position. “Now, she needs to move one step forward to hold a free and fair election in the country.”
Another senior Standing Committee member of the party preferring anonymity said the speech of the prime minister fell far short of a promise to reach an understanding with the opposition to negotiate with it for setting up a poll-time government as demanded by the latter for long.
In this connection, he said, “The scope of reaching an understanding with the opposition would be much greater if the prime minister spelt out in her Friday night’s speech that she would stay away from the poll-time government and put a neutral person as its head.”
Meanwhile, acting secretary general of Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami Maulana Rafiqul Islam Khan in a statement on Friday night rejected the address of the prime minister as having without any substance and misleading. “She made her speech just to foil the opposition movement.”
Earlier on the day BNP acting secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir alleged that Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina was not sincere about her proposal for a dialogue with the opposition to resolve the prevailing political impasse.
“Though the PM has been talking about a political dialogue with the opposition, she is not at all sincere about the talks. She has been misleading people by making conflicting statements,” he said, while briefing reporters at the party’s headquarters at Naya Paltan in the city.
The BNP leader accused the government of planning to take the country to the path of confrontation and anarchy by calling a counter-rally on October 25 when the BNP-led 18-party alliance was scheduled to hold an anti-government rally in the city to materialise its demand for the restoration of the caretaker government system.
The BNP has sought permission for the rally, but is yet to receive the authorities’ decision in this regard. Alamgir expressed his firm determination to hold the rally on October 25, saying that the government would not be able to foil the rally by using police and RAB.
On placing a bill in Parliament, he said that if they placed a bill, it would be rejected by voice vote since the BNP had only 30 seats in the House and the treasury bench had the brute majority.
However, the BNP leader added that the opposition was ready to take part in the discussion if the ruling party placed a bill in Parliament and invited the opposition to take part.
“But they [ruling party] do not want to do it. They want to hold the election without the BNP, sensing that they would not win the polls if the BNP took part in it,” he added.
Alamgir made it clear that the AL-led government’s dream to cling to power would never be fulfilled. “The people won’t accept such fabricated and staged election,” he said.
On the siege of BNP headquarters by police on the Eid day, he said that whenever the BNP announced a programme, the government targeted the party headquarters and harassed party leaders and activists.
“The government didn’t allow us to observe normal democratic programme in the last five years,” he alleged. The BNP leader questioned how a free and fair election could be held under a partisan government when rival party activists were not allowed to enter their party headquarters and when the government planned to harass opposition activists by using its police force.
He said the demand for the caretaker government system had turned into a people’s demand. “The demand cannot be resisted through repression,” he added.
He said the BNP always tried to avoid the path of violence and announced the October 25 rally in accordance with democratic provisions. “But the government called a rally on the same day to create anarchy,” he said.
-With The Independent input
