Awami League President Sheikh Hasina has called an emergency meeting of the party’s top brass in the backdrop of the Opposition’s continued blockade across Bangladesh.
The ruling party’s Central Working Committee will meet the Prime Minister at Ganabhaban on Wednesday afternoon.
“An emergency meeting of the Central Working Committee at 4pm at Ganabhaban has been called,” Awami League’s Deputy Publicity Secretary Asim Kumar Ukil told bdnews24.com on Tuesday night.
Hasina has decided to meet party policymakers after Jatiya Party Chairman HM Ershad announced his decision to not contest the Jan 5 parliamentary polls.
Before calling the meeting, the Prime Minister met senior party leaders at her official residence on Tuesday night.
Jatiya Party Presidium members Anisul Islam Mahmud and Ziuddin Ahmed Bablu and Workers Party President Rashed Khan Menon also attended the meeting.
Awami League leaders, who attended the meeting, included Advisory Council members Amir Hossain Amu, Tofail Ahmed and Suranjit Sengupta, General Secretary Syed Ashraful Islam, Presidium member Obaidul Quader, Joint General Secretaries Mahbub-Ul Alam Hanif, Dipu Moni, Jahangir Kabir Nanak and Publicity Secretary Hasan Mahmud.
Amu did not comment on Tuesday night meeting’s agenda when approached.
However, Quader told bdnews24.com: “The meeting of Central Working Committee has been called to finalise the Dec 14 and Dec 16 programmes.”
Dec 14 is the Martyred Intellectuals Day and Dec 16 is the Victory Day.
Regarding the presence of two Jatiya Party leaders, Forests and Environment Minister Hasan Mahmud told bdnews24.com: “Those who attended the meeting are in favour of the election taking place.”
Hanif said the polls will take place in the ‘right time’. “Those who have submitted nomination papers will take part in the election.”
The ruling party and main opposition BNP are fighting over the format of the government which will oversee the general election.
In a statement issued on Tuesday, the BNP’s acting Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir directed the party supporters to be on the streets until non-party polls-time government demand was met.
The BNP-led 18-Party alliance has been continuously toughening its agitation by calling general strikes to push for a non-party government and enforcing nationwide blockades rejecting the schedule for the parliamentary polls.
With the two parties yet to reach an agreement over the polls-time dispensation, the Awami League has constituted an ‘all-party’ interim cabinet. It also had called the Opposition to join the cabinet.
The BNP and its allies, however, refused, calling it ‘just another farce of the government’.
Earlier on Tuesday, Jatiya Party chief Ershad at a press conference announced his decision to not contest in the election. He said it was taken considering that most political parties including those in the Opposition alliance were not taking part in it.
However, the former military dictator had briefed the press alone with other party leaders missing conspicuously.
Jatiya Party leaders and ‘all-party’ interim cabinet ministers Rowshan Ershad, Salma Islam and Mujibul Haque Chunnu had gone to office at the Secretariat on Tuesday. But GM Quader and ABM Ruhul Amin Howlader did not.
Anisul Islam Mahmud came to the meeting at Ganabhaban, but he did not come to office earlier in the day at the Secretariat.
Chief of a faction of the Jatiya Party, Anwar Hossain Manju, who was recently appointed as an advisor to the Prime Minister, had also met Hasina at her official residence in the evening. His party will contest the polls too along with 14 other political parties.
Meanwhile, State Minister of Women and Children Affairs Salma Islam’s husband Jamuna Group owner Nurul Islam Babul also went to Ganabhaban in the evening.
He had a private meeting with Hasina, said a source at the Prime Minister’s Office.
Source: Bd news24