After enforcing two 60-hour countrywide general strikes in as many weeks to force the government to concede a polls-time non-party administration, the BNP-led 18-Party alliance has called yet another shutdown - this time for 72 hours - starting from Sunday.
Published : 08 Nov 2013, 03:33 PM
The main opposition’s acting Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir made the announcement on Friday afternoon after a meeting of the secretaries general of the alliance member parties.
He claimed the strike was to protect the ‘people’s right to vote’.
“We have already enforced two phases of strikes for a nonpartisan government. But the government has not yet responded. That’s why we are announcing tougher agitations.”
“The strike will be observed from 6am Sunday to 6am Wednesday.”
“The media vehicles, ambulances, fire brigade vehicles and shops and drug stores will be out of the strike’s purview,” he added.
The Opposition had enforced two three-day nationwide shutdowns from Oct 27-29 and Nov 4-6 which were marked by bomb explosions, vandalism and arson incidents. According to the government’s account, at least 20 people were killed in violence.
The secretaries general of the opposition coalition met BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia at her Gulshan office on Friday with Fakhrul presiding over the meeting.
Half an hour after the meeting started, Fakhrul declared the strike call.
The BNP spokesperson claimed that the government did not want reconciliation and was moving towards unilateral elections in the name of formulation of an all-party interim government.
“The people” will not accept it,” he maintained.
“The government has not taken any effective initiatives to hold talks. We will tell them there is still time to choose the path of settlement.”
Fakhrul said the strike will be observed ‘peacefully’ and warned the government that it will have to take responsibility for obstruction to enforcement of the lockdown.
The government seized the rights of political parties to hold rallies, gathering and human-chains, he alleged.
“That’s why we have no other way but to declare tougher programmes,” he said, seeking to defend the much-despised more of programme.
The major political alliances of Bangladesh - the ruling Awami League-led Grand Alliance and the BNP-led 18-Party alliance - have been fighting over the format of the election-time dispensation even as the 90-day countdown to the 10th parliamentary election began on Oct 25.
The AL feels the task of running a polls-time government should be retained by people’s representative to plug loopholes through which a non-elected government had assumed power in 2007.
The caretaker government, backed by the military, stayed on in the power for almost two years, imprisoning top politicians, including chiefs of both the AL and the BNP, accusing them of corruption and power abuse while in office.
The incumbent government, however, deleted the caretaker system from the Constitution by inserting the 15th Amendment in 2011.