Staff Reporter :
The BNP has warned the government that it would not join the national election keeping the party chairperson Khaleda Zia in jail.
The BNP senior leaders said this at a 7-hr token hunger strike in the city’s Mahanagar Natya Mancha on Monday. They said the charges brought against Khaleda Zia were politically motivated and to keep her out of the election.
The former prime minister has been serving a five-year jail term in the Zia Orphanage Trust case.
“We want to make it clear that no parliamentary election will be held sans Khaleda Zia,” said BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir during the token hunger-strike.
Hundreds of leaders and activists of BNP and its associate bodies from different parts of the city took part in the hunger strike.
They observed the programme braving frequent drizzling under open sky.
Reiterating the demand for a ‘neutral and non-partisan’ polls-time government, Fakhrul said, “The Election Commission has to be reformed and the Parliament needs to be dissolved.”
BNP standing committee member Khandaker Mosharraf Hossain said that, “Khaleda Zia will not remain in prison for long. And no election will be held without her.”
He said that Khaleda Zia had established Parliamentary system in the country. She also struggled unabated for democracy. So, BNP will not go to the polls without her.
Mosharraf Hossain alleged that the government of planning for another farce like 2014 election. Accordingly, the government has designed a blueprint. This conspiracy will not be allowed to be implemented again.
Another BNP standing committee member Moudud Ahmed said, through BNP lawyers are trying hard for Khaleda Zia’s release though the legal process, there are some obstacles. The High Court, where bail was granted to Khaleda Zia, has been stayed. The lower court is completely under the control of the government.
He further said, one day the government’s strategy-conspiracy will be ineffective. She will be freed soon. If Khaleda Zia is not released by legal means, the only way to get her release is the street.
About 4:10pm, Ganoshasthya Kendra founder Zafrullah Chowdhury broke the hunger strike by offering water to Fakhrul and other senior leaders who took part in the programme. Mahmudur Rahman Manna, Convenor of Nagorik Okiya, Jamaat-e-Islami’s Mujibur Rahman, Jatiya Party (Jafar) Mostafa Jamal Haider, Jagpa’s General Secretary Khandaker Lutfar Rahman, LDP General Secretary Redwan Ahmed, National People’s Party chairman Khaliquzzaman and Samyabadi Dal Sayeed Ahmad expressed solidarity with the hunger strike.
