BNP chief Khaleda to meet 20-Party alliance leaders Monday

BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia is sitting with the leaders of the 20-Party alliance partners on Monday to decide whether to contest the next phase of the Union Parishad elections.

The third of the six-phase polls will be held at around 650 union councils on Apr 23, after violence and gross irregularities marked the first two legs.

Khaleda held a two-hour-long meeting with senior party leaders on Sunday night at her Gulshan office.

But her decision on taking part in the third phase will come after the meeting with the coalition leaders, BNP Senior Joint Secretary General Ruhul Kabir Rizvi told bdnews24.com.

He said the meeting will start at 8:30pm Monday and the media will be briefed later.

Several leaders who attended Sunday’s meeting said the senior leaders gave their opinions based on the reaction from their constituencies, but the majority of them spoke against boycotting the polls.

They observed that ‘votes were snatched’ in the first two phases, but it will not be the right move to stay away from the election.

They said the BNP stay in the fray to reveal the real face of the Awami League and its government to the people and the world.

On Mar 31, after the second-phase balloting ended, the party’s Senior Secretary General Md Shahjahan met Chief Election Commissioner Kazi Rakibuddin Ahmad and threatened to boycott the remaining four legs.

BNP Standing Committee Member Mahbubur Rahman and Vice-Chairman Shah Moazzem Hossain on Friday urged the party’s policymakers to boycott the polls.

This is the first time the UP polls are being held along political party lines.

The parties have fielded chairman candidates while elections to the general and reserved seats are being held with non-party symbols.

So far, the Awami League chairman candidates have won in 984 union councils and the BNP’s in 108 in the two phases.

Around 30 people have been killed in polls-related violence since the EC announced the election schedule at the end of last year.