The BNP may contest the upcoming municipal elections, though there has not been a party decision yet, Moudud Ahmed has said.
“We have not yet decided anything on the municipal polls. But we, most probably, will participate in the elections … A decision [in this regard] will be taken in the party forum. And I hope our leader [Khaleda Zia] will soon return home and will take a pragmatic decision,” the BNP standing committee member said.
He was speaking to journalists after paying tributes at the grave of BNP founder Ziaur Rahman in the capital on Saturday morning, marking the ‘Revolution and Solidarity Day’.
“We are a democratic party and we contested the elections to four city corporations. Then we participated in the polls to the two city corporations in Dhaka. And we have seen the government’s attitude. If that attitude continues [in the municipal polls], we will fight it.”Moudud also criticised Awami League leaders for their remarks on Khaleda Zia’s call for a national dialogue.
“It doesn’t matter who says what. We are trying to intensify the movement to restore democracy by uniting all the democratic forces under the leadership of Khaleda Zia,” he said.
Asked when the BNP chief will return from London, Moudud said, “She is there for treatment and will return soon … We all are eagerly waiting for our leader to recover and come back.”
The BNP and its front organisations paid tributes to Ziaur Rahman at his grave at Chandrima Udyan park.
BNP leaders Nazrul Islam Khan, Lt Gen (retd) Mahbubur Rahman, Shamsuzzaman Dudu, Shama Obayed, and Jatiya Ganatantrik Party chief Shafiul Alam Pradhan, among others, were present there.
Ziaur Rahman became the army chief after the assassination of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and most of his family members on Aug 15, 1975.
Within months, he was put under house arrest following a coup led by Maj Gen Khaled Mosharraf, who was a sector commander during the 1971 Liberation War.
However, Zia was freed within four days in a counter-coup led by another sector commander Col Taher on Nov 7, 1975, and assumed state power by declaring himself the chief martial law administrator, the first in the country’s history.
In the following days, scores of military leaders, including valiant freedom fighters like Khaled Mosharraf, were killed after controversial court-martial trials.
The BNP observes the day as the ‘National Revolution and Solidarity Day’, the Awami League as the ‘Day of Killing Freedom Fighter Soldiers’, while the Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal, which actively supported the Nov 7 counter-coup, celebrates it as the ‘Sepoy-People Revolution Day’.
Source: bdnews24