Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has signalled her intention to follow through with her polls-time government plan if the opposition does not respond to her calls.
According to sources, Hasina told the cabinet at its regular meeting at the secretariat on Monday that if the BNP does not respond to her offer for an all-party poll-time government, the government will form an all-party government excluding it and their associates, Jamaat-e-Islami.
The polls-time all-party government would be formed immediately after the Election Commission declares its schedule, sources confirmed.
Sources also said that while discussing the polls-time government with her colleagues, the prime minister said she had already started talking to political parties to get their opinion on the issue.
“I will sit with Communist Party of Bangladesh, Bangladesher Samajtantrik Dal, Gana Forum, Bikolpodhara and other political parties. I have called BNP to talks. If BNP does not respond, the polls-time government will be formed with other political parties,”a senior minister quoted Hasina as saying.
The minister also said Hasina had categorically said at on Monday’s meeting she would try her best to bring all political parties, including BNP, to the upcoming election. But if BNP does not wish to participate in the election, she reportedly said, the government would have no alternative but to hold it without them, as per the constitutional obligation of the government.
“There is no scope to go beyond the constitution,” the prime minister was quoted by the senior minister as saying. Sheikh Hasina, however, did express her strong confidence that eventually BNP would join the polls.
Ganabhaban sources said the prime minister would sit with CPB and BSD at her official residence this evening. Earlier she held meetings with Grand Alliance partner Jatiya Party and all the partners of the 14-party alliance.
The Awami League’s parliamentary board at a meeting at Ganabhaban on Sunday night took the decision to finalise AL candidates for the next general election in the first week of November, and begin distributing nomination papers among aspirants from November 10.
On Friday the prime minister phoned BNP chairperson Khaleda Zia and urged her to visit Ganabhaban for talks about polls-time government. However, Khaleda initially rejected the offer and sources later quoted Hasina as saying Khaleda was “very aggressive” during the phone conversation.
Concerning a media report on the conversation, Hasina alleged that BNP had only disclosed the part of the conversation which went in favour of its interests. She asked that the conversation be made public.
Later in the day Information Minister Hasanul Haq Inu, at a press conference from his office, announced that the conversation between the two would be made public.
Previously, Hasina in an address to the nation on October 18 proposed the formation of an all-party government to hold the polls and appealed to the opposition to give names from their lawmakers for the interim cabinet.
According to the constitution, the next elections must be held within 90 days before the ninth parliament’s tenure ends on January 24. A former election commissioner has told the Dhaka Tribune that the commission would usually announce the polls schedule keeping at least 60 days in hand.
At on Monday’s cabinet meeting Sheikh Hasina expressed her concern about the countrywide vandalism during the hartal, and asked the law enforcing agencies to resist such activities. Hasina, also the ruling Awami League president, asked her party’s leaders and activists across the country to counter vandalism and repression by the opposition and to stand beside the victims of the hartal.
