The Bangladesh Nationalist Party-led alliance on Saturday announced a fresh spell of countrywide 60-hour general strike for November 4-6 to press for holding of the next general elections under a ‘non-party’ neutral government.
The acting BNP secretary general, Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, flanked by the secretary level leaders of the alliance at a news briefing at the BNP chairperson’s Gulshan office announced the hartal.
The hartal would be enforced from 6:00am Monday to 6:00pm Wednesday demanding free, fair and inclusive elections under a non-party government, Fakhrul said.
The BNP-led alliance earlier enforced a 60-hour countrywide shutdown from October 27.
Fakhrul said ambulance, fire service and media transports would be out of the purview of the hartal. He said movement of pilgrims who would returned from Saudi Arabia after performing hajj would also remain out of purview of the hartal.
Asked whether public examinations would remain out of the purview of the hartal, Fakhrul said the alliance would announce if a decision over the matter was taken.
Before the news briefing, the acting BNP secretary general held a meeting with secretaries of the components of the alliance at Khaleda’s Gulshan office.
Fakhrul said it was the responsibility of the government to set a date again for dialogue and take a fresh initiative for it.
But he alleged that without doing so the conversation of prime minister Sheikh Hasina and opposition leader Khaleda Zia was broadcast ‘unlawfully’ and ‘unethically’ by the mass media without consent of the opposition leader.
‘It is clear that the government has done it deliberately to block the path of dialogue and consensus,’ he said.
Fakhrul said the opposition leader during the phone conversation with the prime minister on October 26 had said that she was ready to talk anytime and anywhere after the hartal that ended on October 29.
He claimed that the ruling party was giving ‘lip service’ to dialogue, but actually it did not want talks and a consensus. ‘They [ruling party] staged various dramas so that there is no dialogue and consensus,’ he alleged.
Fakhrul referred to Khaleda Zia’s call on October 21 at a press conference for ‘unity through dialogue and consensus’. He said The BNP chairperson had presented an ‘alternative formula’ for election-time government. Besides, Fakhrul said, he had sent a letter to the Awami League general secretary requesting initiatives for dialogue and placed Khaleda’s proposal for an election time ‘non-party’ government in parliament.
He said the treasury bench members had rejected the opposition’s proposal through bitter criticism forcing the opposition to go for movement.
Fakhrul said participation of all political parties was essential for making the next general elections free, fair and acceptable to all.
He said the issue of a non-party government for holding the elections has turned into a ‘national demand to let democracy take its own course, to let people exercise their right to form a government by their choice through vote and to protect their fundamental rights’.
Fakhrul alleged that the government had incorporated the provision for holding the general elections under a ‘partisan’ government by bringing the 15th amendment to the constitution cancelling the provision for an election-time ‘non-party’ caretaker government with an ‘ill motive’ to ‘cling to power’.
He said the government was going to hold a one-sided election defying the opinions of all political parties, noted citizens and lawyers and international opinions.
The government was proceeding with a plan for establishing a ‘one-party’ rule, he alleged. (source)