After staging two 60-hour nationwide shutdowns in successive weeks, the BNP-led 18-party alliance on Friday announced a 72-hour nationwide hartal from tomorrow, to press home their demand for elections to be held under a non-partisan government.
The countrywide hartal will start at 6am on Sunday and end at 6am on Wednesday. BNP acting secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir made the announcement after a secretary general-level meeting of the BNP-led 18-party alliance at BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia’s Gulshan office.
On Thursday night, the BNP Standing Committee, the highest policymaking body of the party, held a meeting at Khaleda Zia’s Gulshan office to analyse the current political situation and to devise their next course of action after the staging of two successive 60-hour nationwide hartals.
At the meeting, party policymakers made a decision in principle to call the third spell of hartal, while the decision was finalised in on Friday’s secretary general-level meeting of the 18-party alliance.
Earlier, the opposition alliance staged two spells of 60-hour shutdowns from November 4 to November 6 and October 27 to October 29. Holding a press briefing at the Gulshan office, Fakhrul said this programme was called to protect the people’s voting rights. “We have repeatedly called for taking positive steps to resolve the crisis but the government did not pay any heed and that is why this programme has been announced,” he said.