Khaleda can be tried for move to resist 05 January elections: AL

In an instant reaction to the BNP chairperson’s speech at the press conference, Awami League leader Mahbub-ul-Alam Hanif on Friday said Khaleda Zia can be brought to book for her attempt to snatch people’s voting rights through resisting the January-5 parliamentary elections.
“Khaleda started countrywide subversive activities before the January-5 election to snatch people’s voting rights. So, she can be tried on this charge,” he said while speaking at a press briefing at AL President Sheikh Hasina’s Dhanmondi political office.Hanif, the ruling party’s joint general secretary, said BNP and its alliance partners hacked or burned 142 common people to death at polling stations. “They tried to snatch voting rights by resorting to violent activities during the 10th parliamentary elections.”
He claimed that BNP did not join the January-5 election as Jamaat-e Islam had become ineligible to participate in the polls after being convicted on charge of war crimes and the Election Commission deregistered the party.
“BNP and Jamaat are two sides of a coin. BNP boycotted the polls to save Jamaat,” he said.
About Khaleda’s remark that the Prime Minister promised a snap election, Hanif posed a question, “Can Begum Zia say when and where the Prime Minister pledged the fresh polls?”
BNP chairperson Khaleda Zia at a press conference at her Gulshan office on Friday alleged that the government did not live up to its commitment though it had promised a fresh election following a dialogue saying that the January-5 election was a constitutional formality.
“It was a mistake for us to retreat from the movement trusting Sheikh Hasina,” Khaleda said. – UNB