The main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party on Thursday announced a countrywide 48-hour hartal across Bangladesh from Saturday morning and urged the people to boycott the January 7 general election.
BNP senior joint secretary general Ruhul Kabir Rizvi, addressing a virtual press conference in the afternoon, said that the party would enforce the hartal between 6:00am on Saturday and 6:00am on Monday.
The hartal covers the election day, pre-election day, and six hours after the election.
Rizvi said in the press briefing that his party would hold a procession and mass contact and distribute leaflets among people across the country on Friday.
The BNP and its allies are now on a simultaneous movement to press home their demand to dissolve the parliament and the resignation of the government by handing over power to a party-neutral government to hold the next general election.
The opposition parties had earlier announced a non-cooperation movement and a boycott of the January 7 election and urged the country’s people not to go to polling centres.
Rizvi said that other like-minded opposition parties would also observe a similar programme.
Rizvi called upon the opposition leaders and activists to make the programme a success with their spontaneous support.
Earlier on Monday, the party extended their mass contact and leaflet distribution programme until Thursday.
On December 24, the party announced a three-day mass contact and leaflet distribution programme beginning on December 26. Later, the programme was extended three times.
BNP, along with nearly three dozen opposition political parties, have been carrying out a simultaneous movement since December 2022 to force the current government to quit and hold the 12th parliamentary election under a non-party neutral administration.
BNP’s movement lost its momentum following clashes with law enforcers centring the party’s grand rally on October 28 as many senior leaders, including its secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, were arrested while many others went into hiding in the face of a crackdown by law enforcers.
BNP and like-minded parties have enforced countrywide blockades for 23 days in 12 phases and hartals for five days in four spells since October 29.
The opposition party finally came up with a call for non-cooperation on December 20.
New Age
