The BNP is currently focusing on ensuring the next national election is under a non-party neutral government, not on the issue of electronic voting machines (EVMs), Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir said on Thursday.
“The government has started playing a new trick on the election as they are saying it will be held using EVMs… We have one point – the current government has to step down, handing over power to a neutral one,” he said.
Speaking at a bicycle rally in the capital, the former state minister also said the next election must be conducted under a new Election Commission, constituted by a neutral government. “Until then, no election can be held in the country,” he said, reports UNB.
Before the election, Fakhrul said, party chief Khaleda Zia and all other jailed leaders have to be freed and all political cases filed against BNP leaders and activists must be withdrawn.
Dhaka district unit BNP arranged the rally at Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy Railway field on behalf of the party’s committee on the celebration of the golden jubilee of independence.
Accusing the government of snatching people’s rights and destroying democracy and all dreams and spirits of the Liberation War, Fakhrul said the bicycle rally will encourage and invigorate the country’s people to restore democracy and their all lost rights. “A new democratic journey has begun in the country through this rally,” he said.
He alleged that the ruling party resorts to repressive and coercive acts because it is afraid of BNP’s strength and popularity. “We must overcome all obstacles,” he said.
The BNP leader called upon people of all walks of life to get united to defeat the current “fascist” regime by forging national unity.
Hundreds of leaders and workers of BNP and its associate bodies took part in the bicycle rally and chanted various anti-government slogans.
