The main opposition BNP said it will resist any moves to hold elections under party government.
“We want to say clearly that no election except the one held under the non-partisan government will be accepted,” BNP’s acting secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam said.
Addressing a discussion at the Institution of Engineers, Bangladesh to mark BNP’s 35th founding anniversary, Fakhrul said the government sensing a debacle is now trying to hold the elections unilaterally using muscle power.
“After their defeat in city corporation elections, they have understood well that they can’t win in any way if national elections are held under a non-party caretaker government. So, they are now trying to arrange the polls under a party government by force,” he said.
Fakhrul said the government was trying to “score in an empty filed” by arresting opposition leaders and activists and implicating them in false cases.
Regarding the confusion over the next polls, Fakhrul said even the UN secretary general said he was concerned about the election.
He confidently said: “BNP will get two-thirds majority if free and fair polls are held.”
Refuting the prime minister’s observation that militancy will rise if BNP assumes power, Fakhrul said: “BNP never supports militancy. Instead militancy rose during the Awami League period.”
He criticized the prime minister for her comment on Khaleda Zia at a public rally in Dhaka on Friday and said, “The prime minister made indecent comments about leader of the opposition. We hope that she will refrain from making such non-political and indecent remarks in future.”
Among others the party’s standing committee members Khandakar Mosharraf Hossain, Barrister Moudud Ahmed, Rafiqul Islam Miah and Abdul Moyeen Khan, vice chairman Abdullah Al Noman and Sadeque Hossain Khoka also spoke at the programme. BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia was supposed to attend as chief guest but she failed to turn up.
