People of the country are now stuck between a rock and a hard place as both Awami League and BNP have adopted a hard line on defusing the major political crisis prevailing over the past 19 days.
The Awami League-led coalition government believes it has reached a boiling point from where no reversal is possible while BNP thinks this time it is a do-or-die battle for it.
The government is contemplating strict legal action against BNP-Jamaat men involved in subversive acts that have so far claimed at least 30 lives.
A minister of the ruling party in return for anonymity said as the blockade continued to take its toll on general people it left the government with no option but to go tough.
“If the government goes soft in such a situation the BNP-Jamaat alliance will take it as a retreat.”
In the BNP camp, several standing committee members requested their Chief Khaleda Zia to announce alternative programmes but she adamantly denied their suggestion, said a number of insiders.
Khaleda Zia told them: “This is a final chance; it is now or never; it is a do-or-die battle,” they said.
Meanwhile, the joint forces, police, RAB and BGB have already launched crackdown on BNP-Jamaat leaders and activists across the country.
Law enforcers have arrested several central leaders of the 20-party alliance including BNP acting secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir on charge of masterminding sabotage.
The Awami League high command believes the BNP-Jamaat-led movement will end once its leaders are arrested to face trials like that of 2013.
In 2013, the BNP-led 20-party’s most of the top-level leaders including district and upazila level ones were sent to jail on charge of unleashing violence and sabotage before the movement died down.
An Awami League presidium member said: “At first we had a plan to hold talks with BNP and other political parties excepting Jamaat-e-Islami before the 11th national election in 2019, if they want. But now the government is thinking otherwise.”
“The government has decided to go tough on tackling BNP-Jamaat anarchy the way it was done in 2013,” he added.
His view was later echoed in the remarks of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and State Minister for Home Affairs Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said it would be logical to arrest BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia as the key accused on charge of aiding and abetting those who have so far killed around 30 people in the name of blockade.
“And law will take its own course,” swer session at the parliament on Wednesday.
However, the PM said, the situation had improved a lot since the national election on January 5 in 2014.
Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal told the Dhaka Tribune that the government had been forced to go tough to save lives of general people.
“The government has endured a lot but they are attacking with petrol bombs and killing innocent people every day. We have a limit to tolerance.”
The political tension between the Awami League-led government and BNP-led 20-party alliance re-surfaced on January 05, 2015, the first anniversary of the 10 parliamentary polls which the BNP boycotted.
After BNP chief Khaleda Zia was confined to her Gulshan party office on January 3 the party declared a non-stop nationwide blockade on January 5.
