BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia has said the opposition would respond positively to offer of talks to iron out solution to the political standoff with the ruling Awami League over the nature of government to oversee the national election.
In her address to a rally in Narsinghdi on Sunday, she blamed Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina for shutting doors to dialogue in the name of upholding the Constitution.
“The Prime Minister has lost her mind,” Khaleda said of her arch political rival.
“We always want dialogues and will respond positively if the government offers talks,” said Khaleda.
The Leader of the Opposition had slapped a 48-hour ultimatum asking the government to accept their demand of restoring the caretaker government provision when the Awami League chief invited her to dialogue on May 3.
Khaleda had also ridiculed the proposal calling it a “dialogue drama”.
The BNP-led opposition has been waging street protests since the caretaker government provision was scrapped through the 15th constitutional amendment. The national election will take place under the incumbent government as per the latest Amendment, which the opposition claims will not be ‘free and fair’.
Khaleda came down hard on the current Kazi Rakibuddin Ahmad-led Election Commission.
“The incumbent EC is a spineless, incompetent Commission. They are puppets who now have no courage.
“Why don’t they step down as they feel helpless?” she asked.
The BNP chief alleged around 23,000 people had been killed over the past four and a half years of this government’s rule. “They have embezzled money from the capital market, Hall-Mark [Group scam], Destiny [2000 Limited] and from various banks,” she said.
“I have heard the government’s ministers and MPs have bought houses abroad to flee the country when the time is right,” the former Prime Minister claimed.
Khaleda expressed her indignation as killers of Narsinghdi municipal Mayor Lokman Hossain were still at large and promised to try the perpetrators if the BNP came to power.
She alleged the Prime Minister was ‘afraid’ of organising the polls under a non-party caretaker government as she would not be able to control the law-enforcing agencies if she stepped down.
“We want an election with equal opportunity for all. The people will vote the ruling party if they had worked for the country’s development, otherwise they won’t,” the BNP Chairperson said.
Khaleda also criticised the crackdown by security forces on the Hifazat-e Islam supporters at Dhaka’s Motijheel on May 5-6, detention of BNP-leaning Bengali-language daily ‘Amar Desh’ acting Editor Mahmudur Rahman, rights-group Odhikar Secretary Adilur Rahman Khan and taking Islamic TV and Diganta TV off air.
Source: bdnews24
