PM must hold talks with me, insists Khaleda

BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia has hit back at the prime minister saying Sheikh Hasina has no option but to sit for talks with her if the latter wants a solution to the current ‘political crisis’.

“Ninety-five percent of Bangladesh’s people are with me,” she claimed at a press briefing on Monday night at her Gulshan office.

Hasina on Saturday ruled out the possibility of a dialogue with Khaleda arguing her arch political rival was no more the Opposition Leader.

Khaleda retorted, “I’m not the Opposition Leader but the leader of the people.

“I’d have been the prime minister, not the Opposition Leader, if the Jan 5 elections were free and fair,” she said.

Hasina and Khaleda, leading two political dynasties, have alternated as Bangladesh’s prime minister since the early 1990s.

The BNP and its allies boycotted the polls demanding a non-party caretaker government’s supervision.

International quarters, including the UN secretary general, pushed for a dialogue between ‘battling begums’ -- as they are often referred to by foreign journalists -- before the polls but in vain.

Last year, Hasina called Khaleda over phone and asked her to sit for talks. The BNP chief had turned down the offer citing her party’s pre-planned countrywide strike.

Over half of the parliamentary seats returned winners without a contest and sealed a second successive Awami League term in office.

The Jatiya Party emerged as the main opposition and its Presidium member Raushan Ershad is the current Leader of the Opposition in Parliament.

The BNP is still pressing ahead with its demand for a caretaker government and early polls.

“Ninety-five percent people refrained from voting responding to my call,” Khaleda said. “You (Hasina) are not the prime minister of the people but the leader of only five percent people.

“So, you see, it is me who you have to hold talks with if you want to,” the former prime minister said.