Main opposition BNP has alleged that the ruling party selling nomination papers is a projection of the government’s conspiracy to hold one-sided polls.
The party also alleged that the government had adopted an “evil strategy” to isolate Khaleda Zia from her party colleagues by confining her.
“The Awami League has started selling nomination forms. It is evident that they are walking towards their conspiracy of holding elections unilaterally. They do not want a dialogue and compromise for resolving the crisis,” Ruhul Kabir Rizvi, joint secretary general of BNP, told reporters at briefing at the party’s Nayapaltan headquarters on Sunday.
Generally, such press briefings remain packed with party leaders and activists. But on Sunday, there was no one else at the briefing apart from the party’s executive committee member Belal Ahmed and some of other staffs of the Nayapaltan office. Even the assistants and office secretaries were nowhere to be seen around.
Rizvi claimed that on the first day of the 84-hour nationwide hartal, more than 700 people were arrested, around 1,800 injured and cases filed against more than 8,000 opposition leaders and activists.
Rejecting the government’s claim that law enforcers were deployed in front of BNP chief Khaleda Zia’s house for security reasons, Rizvi said: “We think that in the name of security, the government has taken the strategy to confine the leader of the opposition. It is a repressive act.”
Quoting newspapers, Rizvi alleged that the water supply to the opposition chief’s Gulshan residence had been cut off and no one had been allowed to take in food for her. “The people of the country are concerned about these incidents.”
“We think the government has chosen such a repressive path to weaken the BNP chairperson mentally. We strongly condemned such a move.”
At the briefing, Rizvi also told journalists that oxygen carrying vehicles would remain out of the hartal purview.
