A day after confirming to the media that BNP chief Khaleda Zia ‘is ready to go abroad for treatment on bail’, BNP lawmaker Md Harunur Rashid says that he has discussed the matter with Awami League General Secretary Obaidul Quader.
A joint secretary general of the BNP, Harun met with senior Cabinet member Quader at his Secretariat offices on Wednesday (Oct 2).
Speaking to reporters after emerging from the minister’s office, Harun said, “We have discussed the matter of Khaleda Zia’s bail. The minister told us he will speak to the prime minister in the evening.”
The BNP lawmaker claimed that the talks had ‘nothing to do with politics.’
Dismissing the move as an effort to eliminate Khaleda from the political landscape, he said, “That’s not the case at all. She is 76 years old and suffering from several complicacies. She needs immediate medical treatment.”
Asked whether Khaleda would travel abroad for treatment, Harun said, “Let her secure bail first.”
Harun was among the three BNP MPs who met Khaleda on Tuesday (Oct 1) at the Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University (BSMMU) hospital.
The two other MPs who accompanied Harun were Abdus Sattar Bhuiyan and Md Aminul Islam.
Speaking to the media after meeting Obaidul Quader on Wednesday, the BNP leader made it clear that the party’s chief release on parole ‘was never on the table.’
“Neither the government nor the family and the party proposed it. This was all made up by the media,” he claimed before dismissing the latest initiative for party chief’s release indicates a compromise with the government.
The BNP alleges that Khaleda has been wrongly convicted of politically motivated corruption charges, for which she has been serving altogether 17 years in jail since February last year.
It blames the government for her incarceration terming it a plot to keep her away from politics and elections.
Of late, her party has been alleging that the ruling Awami League is out to deny her bail.
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