Staff Reporter :
BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia can contest the upcoming 11th parliamentary election as she has filed appeal petitions against her verdicts, said party Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir.
“There is no scope of any confusion about Khaleda Zia’s participation in the 11th Parliamentary polls,” he said thisw while briefing reporters at the BNP chief’s Gulshan office on Monday.
“Our party chairperson is still competent for participating in the election. So, what the Awami League leaders are saying does not make any sense. We believe that she can take part in the election,” Fakhrul said.
The BNP Secretary General alleged that the Election Commission is yet to create a level playing field for all the political parties.
In a statement yesterday, Mirza Fakhrul alleged that law enforcers were arresting their party leaders who had the brighter prospect to win the 11th parliamentary polls.”We are observing with serious concern and anger that the tendency of arresting opposition leaders and activists in false and fictitious cases and denying them bail has marked a sharp rise even after the announcement of the election schedule and the Prime Minister’s announcement,” he said.
“Especially those opposition candidates who have the brighter prospect to come out successful in the upcoming election are being arrested and denied bail,” he said.
He also alleged that the lower court was delaying the hearing on bail petitions of the prospective BNP candidates with a political motive.
He said their party Chairperson Khaleda Zia, ex-whip Munirul Haque Chowdhury, BNP joint secretaries general Aslam Chowdhury, Habibun Nabi Khan Sohel, Khaleda’s special assistant Shamsur Rahman Shimul Biswas and Juba Dal general secretary Sultan Salauddin Tuku and many other leaders had been kept in jail denying them bail in different cases.
Fakhrul said the arrest and harassment of their leaders and activities were on so that the ruling party could make political gains.
The BNP leader said their some candidates were threatened over phone in the name of different agencies while toll money demanded from some others, destroying the election atmosphere.
