Bnp Chairperson Khaleda Zia has called for a government initiative to hold dialogues with political parties for snap elections.
She made the call while addressing a rally held in front of BNP Naya Paltan headquarters to mark the second anniversary of the Jan 5 national polls, which her party had boycotted.
Khaleda said, “We want solutions through dialogues. We want to work together for the sake of democracy.”
She urged the government to create, through dialogues with political parties, an environment congenial for holding free and fair elections.
The BNP is observing Jan 5 as the ‘Murder of Democracy Day’ because the government had held the last parliament elections without the participation of the BNP, the main opposition party in parliament at the time.
The BNP had boycotted the elections because its demand for polls under a neutral caretaker government had not been met.
On Jan 5 last year, tension brewed between the two parties over the programmes they had planned at Suhrawardy Udyan in Dhaka.
Barred from holding the rally, Khaleda had called for a nationwide blockade that lasted for three months, leaving over 100 people dead.
Khaleda said at the Tuesday rally, “They (Awami League) are clinging to power with the use of force. It is now their responsibility to hold a fresh election.”
Addressing Awami League leaders, she said, “Return to the right path and the path of democracy. Or else, the people can rise anytime against you … the people cannot be dominated.”
‘Efforts to establish monarchy will lead nowhere’
The BNP chairperson alleged that the ruling Awami League is trying to establish monarchy in the country by killing people.
“The government has not only killed democracy, it is trying to establish monarchy by killing people,” she said.
Addressing the ruling party, Khaleda said, “You had made immense efforts before (to kill democracy). Once before, you tried to establish a one-party rule. Now you are trying it again.”
She further alleged that the government was enacting new laws ‘to trap’ BNP leaders and activists.
She said, “The people can never be dominated… The people never accept laws that do not favour them.”
The BNP chief said no one could cling on to power by resorting to enforced disappearances and murders.
The Tuesday rally was BNP’s first gathering in front of its headquarters addressed by Khaleda after 2012.
It was also the party’s first public gathering after the debacle in the Dec 30 municipal elections and a major event after last year’s agitations.
Referring to the victory of BNP-backed mayoral candidates in several city corporation elections from 2009 to 2013, Khaleda said, “BNP candidates win elections if they are fair. But no election under the Awami League government will ever be fair.”
She alleged that the government was using law enforcers to harass and torture ‘opposition’ leaders.
“Our brothers from law enforcing agencies are here. I wish to tell them that they (who are being tortured) are the sons of Bangladesh. Should they be subjected to torture, sufferings, enforced disappearances and murders?”
“You are being engaged in misdeeds. I’m don’t mean to say that police are bad. But you are being misled (by the government),” she said.
Demanding an end to the present situation, the BNP chief said, “We all want to live together. Bangladesh is a small country. We can develop Bangladesh into a nice country if we work together.”
BNP acting Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, Standing Committee members Moudud Ahmed, ASM Hannan Shah, Muhammad Jamiruddin Sircar, Abdul Moyeen Khan and Nazrul Islam Khan, Shah Moazzem Hossain, Hafizuddin Ahmed, Gayeshwar Chandra Roy and Ruhul Kabir Rizvi were present at the rally.
Source: Bd news24
