Awami League President and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has sat in a dialogue with leaders of Jatiya Oikyo Front over the next general election.
The meeting has started around 11am at Ganobhaban on Wednesday (Nov 7).
A 11-member Oikya Front delegation, led by Dr Kamal Hossain, arrived at PM’s official residence around 10.30am.

Others in the delegation are BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, barrister Moudud Ahmed, Dr Khandakar Mosharraf Hossain, Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal (JSD-Rab) President ASM Abdur Rab, its General Secretary Abdul Malek Ratan, Gano Forum Secretary General Mostafa Mohsin Montu, Gano Forum Executive President advocate Subrata Chowdhury, Nagorik Oikya convener Mahmudur Rahman Manna and its Adviser SM Akram, Jatiya Oikya Prokriya leader and former DUCSU VP Sultan Mohammad Mansur are among the representatives of the Jatiya Oikya Front for the second round of talks.

The Oikya Front leaders were received by Amir Hossain Amu, Tofail Ahmed, Sheikh Fajlul Karim Selim, Motiya Chowdhury, Mohammad Nasim, Obaidul Quader, advocate Anisul Huq, Dr Dipu Moni, Dr Abdus Sobhan Golap, SM Razaul Karim, Rashed Khan Menon and Hasanul Haq Inu.

The first round of talks was held on Nov 1, when Dr Kamal led a 20-member delegation.

The crucial talks are expected to ease political tensions between the Hasina-led administration and opposition groups. But history says that these discussions often did not yield any tangible result.

After the brutal murder of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and most of his family in August 1975, there was a change in the political arena with Ziaur Rahman taking power.

On Jan 22, 1976, political leaders had a meeting with the president’s special assistant, Justice Abdus Sattar.

In April 1984, the then-president HM Ershad had dialogue with leaders of the seven parties. At that time, the seven parties gave 33 point demands but the talks did not progress and the leaders of the seven parties left.

The same month, Ershad had talks with Jamaat-e-Islami before holding a dialogue with BNP chief Khaleda Zia. But these discussions were fruitless.

Ershad’s call for talks in September 1987 was rejected by Awami League chief Sheikh Hasina.

In November the same year, Ershad proposed another discussion but did not get any response.

In 1994, a discussion was mediated by the then-Commonwealth secretary general Emeka Anyaoku between the ruling BNP and opposition Awami League but that also did not bring out any concrete result.

A proposal for talks in 1995 by Awami League was rejected by the then parliament deputy leader AQM Badruddoza Chowdhury.

When BNP demanded election under caretaker government in 2001 and the ruling AL rejected it, a crisis developed.

To reach a compromise, former US president Jimmy Carter came to Bangladesh and had talks with both sides which again did not produce any result.

In 2006, a three-week-long discussion was held on election time government between opposition AL’s general secretary Abdul Jalil and ruling party secretary general Abdul Mannan Bhuiyan.

At that time, 29 points were presented to BNP by AL but the meetings did not end in any understanding.

Prior to the January 5, 2014 election, BNP sat with ruling AL at the end of 2013 and UN special envoy Oscar Taranco also came to Dhaka to mediate talks.

Three meetings were held but the end result was nil.