BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir has announced that Jatiya Oikya Front will organize a march towards the Election Commission if the announcement of the schedule of the 11th general election is not postponed.
He on Tuesday also said that the alliance Front would organize a road march to Rajshahi on Thursday too if their demands are not met in the second round of dialogue with Awami League scheduled for Wednesday.
The alliance is set to hold its fourth public rally in Rajshahi city on Friday.
Fakhrul also urged the leaders and activists of the member parties of the coalition to prepare for a movement to press home their demands for a credible election if their dialogues with the ruling party fail.
The senior BNP leader was addressing an Oikya Front rally at Suhrawardy Udyan in Dhaka. This was the alliance’s third such program.
“We want a solution through the dialogues. We want the people’s freedom. But that does not mean a drama should be stage in the name of dialogues,” he added.
Oikya Front had held its first dialogue with Awami League-led 14-Party Alliance on November 1.
Fakhrul said that hundreds of thousands of BNP leaders and activists had been accused in 4,371 cases filed across the country till now since September 1.
He also alleged that a number of BNP leaders and activists were also detained by police across the country on Tuesday.
“We do not want to be arrested. We want to carry out a movement alongside the people to press home our demands,” he added.
Senior leaders of Jatiya Oikya Front on stage at their rally at Suhrawardy Udyan in Dhaka on November 6, 2018 | Mehedi Hasan/Dhaka Tribune
Apart from Fakhrul, the other BNP leaders who also addressed the rally included the party’s Standing Committee members Moudud Ahmed, Mirza Abbas, Khandaker Mosharraf Hossain and Gayeshwar Chandara Roy.
Abbas said: “People of Bangladesh never tolerated injustice and repression... Our movement is not aimed at putting BNP in power again, rather to re-establish democracy in the country.
“We want our right to vote ensured and live our lives freely.”
Formation of Oikya Front
On October 13, Dr Kamal Hossain-led Gono Forum had joined hands with BNP and three other political parties and formally launched Jatiya Oikya Front.
The other partners in the alliance are ASM Abdur Rab-led Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal (JSD-Rab), Mahmudur Rahman Manna-led Nagorik Oikya and a faction of Jatiya Oikya Prokriya.
Abdul Kader Siddique-led Krishak Sramik Janata League also joined the alliance on Monday.
Demands and goals
The alliance is campaigning to press home its seven-point charter of demands, which includes release of BNP chief Khaleda and all political prisoners from jail, election under an impartial polls-time government, dissolution of parliament before the polls and reformation of the Election Commission.
Oikya Front is also pursuing 11 goals to fulfil if they win in the polls and form the government.
They included ensuring checks and balances in the state power, decentralization of administration, freeing MPs from the stringent restrictions imposed on them under Article 70 of the constitution, formation of a constitutional commission to make appointments to all constitutional and other important posts and full independence of the judiciary.
