Bangladesh: 95pc voters under command of BNP-led alliance: Khaleda

Dhaka, July 8 (New Age): The Bangladesh Nationalist Party chairperson, Khaleda Zia, on Monday reissued her threat to build anti-government resistance after Eid-ul-Fitr claiming that 95 per cent voters were now under the command of the BNP-led alliance. Addressing an iftar party hosted by Jatiya Ganatantrik Party at a city hotel in honour of politicians and distinguished citizens, she urged all to join the movement to free the country from ‘misrule of the repressive government.’ She claimed that people boycotted the one-sided January 5 general elections responding to the call of the BNP-led alliance. She said that if 5 per cent votes were cast in the election, the BNP-led alliance received the rest 95 per cent votes. Khaleda urged the ministers and leaders of the ruling Awami League and its alliesto atke steps to create a democratic environment stopping falsehood. She blamed the ‘ruling party-backed terrorists’ and detectives of the Rapid Action Battalion and the police for attempting to abduct Dhaka Reporters Unity president Shahed Chowdhury in the capital on Sunday for enforced disappearance. Khaleda said that people protected Shahed from abduction. The BNP chairperson criticised the government’s move to enact a law to ‘further gag’ the freedom of press. She said that a fair trial of recent multiple killings in Narayanganj would not be held as the real criminals were not being held and the detained were kept in luxury to suppress the truth. Khaleda said that top leaders of the ruling party and ministers would have been named if those people were arrested and interrogated properly. Khaleda reiterated that the prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, also in charge of the home ministry, must bear the responsibility of each killing and enforced disappearance. She said that the country was now in great danger as there was no legal and elected government. She said that unemployment was on the rise and people were afflicted by price hike of essentials and suffered from bad condition of roads inside the capital and bad shape of highways elsewhere. JAGPA president Shafiul Alam Prodhan made a welcome address at the iftar party. A prayer was offered before the iftar seeking relief of the country from the rule of the ‘oppressive’ government. Leaders of  BNP-led alliance, including acting BNP secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, Jamaat-e-Islami working committee member Redwanullah Shahedi, Shamim Sayeede, son of Jamaat Nayeb-e-ameer Delwar Hossain Sayeede, Islami Oikya Jote chairman Abdul Latif Nezami, Khelafar Majlish chairman Mohammad Ishaq, Kalyan Party chairman Syed Mohammad Ibrahim, Kazi Zafar Ahmed-led Jatiya Party faction secretary general Mostafa Zamal Haidar, National Peoples Party chairman Sheikh Shawkat Hossain Nilu, secretary general Fariduzzaman Farhad, National Democratic Party chairman Khandaker Golam Mortuza, Liberal Democratic Party secretary general Redwan Ahmed, Labour Party chairman Mustafizur Rahman Iran, Islamic Party chairman Abdul Mobin, Peoples League president Garib-e-Newaz, Democratic League general secretary Saifuddin Ahmed Moni, acting Samyabadi Dal general secretary Sayeed Ahmed and JAGPA general secretary Lutfar Rahman and organising secretary Sheikh Jamal Uddin among others attended the iftar.