The BNP has warned the government that the national election cannot be held with party chief Khaleda Zia behind the bar.
The former prime minister serving a five-year term after she was convicted of embezzling foreign donations made to the Zia Orphanage Trust.
Leaders at a demonstration in Dhaka on Monday also described the charges against Khaleda as a politically motivated attempt to shut her out of the election.
“We want to make it clear that no parliamentary election will be held with Khaleda Zia in jail,” Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir said during a token hunger-strike at Dhaka’s Gulistan.
Reiterating the demand for a ‘neutral and non-partisan’ polls-time government he said, “Besides that the election commission has to be reformed as well as the parliament has to be dissolved.”

Addressing the progamme, the party’s  Standing Committee Member Khandaker Mosharraf Hossain' said, “Khaleda has been punished politically, not legally, so she won’t be released through legal process. She will be free through political movement.”

Citing the judiciary isn’t independent, another Standing Committee Member Moudud Ahmed said, “Instructed by the government, a lower court magistrate stayed Khaleda’s bail, which she secured from the High Court.”

“It proves the country has no independent judiciary system, he said.

Leaders of BNP led 20-party alliance attended the strike to express their solidarity.