The BNP has come forward with a six-point demand for taking part in the upcoming national election, including immediate and unconditional release of party chief Khaleda Zia.
Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir floated the demands while addressing Saturday’s rally marking BNP’s 40th anniversary.
He said the government has to step down as soon as polls schedule is announced for the next general election.
The current parliament will have to be dissolved and the army will have to be deployed during the election, he said.
Apart from these, the present Election Commission will have to be reconstituted for holding the next general election in a free, fair and inclusive manner, said Mirza Fakhrul reiterating the demands which the BNP have been voicing for quite some time now.
Leaders and activists of the party’s different fronts and associate bodies from across the capital as well as other parts of the country thronged the rally in front of the BNP Naya Paltan headquarters with banners, placards and festoons demanding immediate release of the party’s imprisoned Chairperson Khaleda Zia.
The 73-year-old former prime minister has been serving a five-year term since February after she was convicted of embezzling foreign donations made to the Zia Orphanage Trust.
Addressing the rally, the BNP secretary general said that the Awami League knows very well that the people are not by them.
“That’s why they have resorted to machines. They want to ride on the back of EVMs (electronic voting machines).”
Blaming the ruling party of conspiring against the BNP, Mirza Fakhrul said, “A cabinet has even said that Tarique Rahman will be convicted of the Aug 21 grenade attack! Have you taken up the job of the judge?”
Speaking at the rally, several senior party leaders made it clear that the BNP will not go to the polls with party chief Khaleda behind the bars.
“No election will be held with Khaleda Zia in jail. The BNP will go to the election only after her release,” National Standing Committee Member Amir Khoshru Mahmud Chowdhury told the rally.
Standing Committee member and former speaker Jamiruddin Sircar echoed and said, “An election without Khaleda will not be credible.”
BNP chief Khaleda adviser Zainul Abedin, who also heads the Supreme Court Bar Association, said that the bails in two more cases will pave the way for Khaleda’s release from prison.
The next general election will have to be held under a non-party neutral administration for restoration of democracy in the country, BNP Standing Committee Member Goyeshwar Chandra Roy said.
“Who says that the only pre-condition for taking part in the polls is Khaleda Zia’s release? The parliament has to be dissolved and troops have to deploy in the polls,” he told the rally.
After capturing power following several coups and political upheavals in 1975, military dictator Ziaur Rahman founded the ‘Jatyiatabadi Ganatantrik Dal’ in February 1978.
The party was turned into the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) on Sep 1 the same year.