Hasina regime can’t shut BNP out of general election, Khaleda says

Khaleda Zia has warned the government no matter how hard it tries, it will not be able to hold the 11th parliamentary elections by keeping the BNP out of the mix.

“We are an election-oriented party. We must take part in elections. No one can keep us out of the polls even if they want to. We will join the election,” she told a gathering of Jatiyatabadi Chhatra Dal in Dhaka on Tuesday.    

“It’s not going to happen if you (govt) think you will announce the election after detaining our people. No election like that of 2014 will be held in Bangladesh any more. The elections will be inclusive in this country,” the BNP chief said.     

She said no election could be ‘acceptable’ by keeping her party out, claiming it to be the largest one of the country.

“Because the entire world has realised that the election with Hasina in power was not fair and it won’t be,” the former prime minister said.

The BNP sat out of parliament after around two and a half decades by boycotting the Jan 5 2014 elections held with Hasina as prime minister.

The party has been demanding dissolution of parliament and formation of a ‘non-partisan, facilitating’ government before the general elections, a demand the ruling Awami League has refused to entertain.

Khaleda renewed the demand on Tuesday, claiming that Hasina and her party have decided to oversee the elections to perpetuate power.

She added the current government is ‘not elected by the people’.

The BNP chief said everything happens in the country “on Hasina’s orders now and that is why it is going backward”.

She criticised the government for not appointing chief justice since the resignation of Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha and alleged the authorities ‘forced’  him out at 'gunpoint’.

Khaleda claimed the Awami League would not be able to complete the construction of Padma Bridge in its current term.

And even if the AL government managed to build one, she said, it would be a ‘fragile’ one and no one was going to use it as there was risk factors involved.

The BNP chief asked the supporters of Chhatra Dal, the party’s student affiliate, to be 'disciplined and united.' “Only raising slogans won’t work,” she said.

The JCD organised the programme at the Institution of Engineers, Bangladesh auditorium in Ramna to mark the organisation’s 39th founding anniversary.

The function was scheduled to start at 2pm, but the authorities locked the auditorium’s gate citing another programme to be attended by President Md Abdul Hamid in the Supreme Court area.

Thousands of JCD leaders and activists had already gathered on the yard of the institution by the time.

Khaleda arrived at the venue around 4:30pm and waited in her car until the authorities opened the doors about an hour later.

She criticised the IEB authorities for the delay in opening the gate even though JCD booked the auditorium after getting permission.

JCD President Rajib Ahsan chaired the programme moderated by its acting General Secretary Asaduzzaman Asad.

Among others, BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir and Standing Committee members Moudud Ahmed and Abdul Moyeen Khan, addressed the event.

Private eyes on BNP leaders

Khaleda has assigned sleuths to check whether the leaders and activists of the BNP and its affiliates are actually joining programmes.

She says her supporters’ enthusiasm to take photos with her on mobile phones irritates her now.

Speaking at the JCD function, Khaleda said, “Only showing your face and taking mobile-phone photos won’t work. You can’t say you were in the movement after only clicking photos with 10 to 12 people on the street.”

“We’ve found an alternative. We have assigned our detectives to check how you are organising the programmes,” she warned.

She said the BNP leaders and activists were also under the surveillance. 

“No one will be spared. Everyone must do his or her own duty,” she said.