bdnews24.com
Opposition chief Khaleda Zia on Wednesday urged the government to
table a bill in Parliament for reinstalling non-partisan caretaker
government and warned that the anti-government movement will continue
until the demand is agreed to.
“I would like to tell the government we will join Parliament if you
table a bill for resorting caretaker government in its next session,”
she told a rally at Badda winding up her seven-hour ‘mass contact’
campaign.
She said they wanted to pass the bill after discussions with all.
“I am not announcing any programme today, will call it later. The
movement will get tougher unless our demand for a non-partisan
caretaker government is met,” she added.
The BNP chief reached Badda after addressing rallies at Gabtoli,
Karwan Bazar, Jatrabari, Sabujbagh and leading ‘mass contact’ at
several places in the city for whipping up public support for the
caretaker provision.
Referring to a comment of the court about Sheikh Hasina, Khaleda told
the Jatrabari street rally: “A crazy person cannot be allowed to be in
power.”
Speaking there, the former Prime Minister also dubbed the Awami League
President a ‘thief’s mother’ and urged the people to wage movement
against what she said the ‘corrupt’ government.
Responding to the fierce criticism over the alliance between her party
and the anti-liberation force Jamaat-e-Islami, Khaleda showed her
audience a picture where Awami League leader Sheikh Fazlul Karim Selim
and Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal (JaSaD)President Hasanul Haque Inu were
shaking hands with Jamaat leaders at a programme.
Khaleda kicked off her daylong campaign reaching Gabtoli around 11am
and she addressed a rally there. She moved to Shaheed Faruque Road at
Jatrabari after addressing another rally at Karwan Bazar.
The BNP chief went to Sabujbagh around 4.30pm and then to Badda to
address her last rally of the day in the evening.
Addressing the rally at Karwan Bazar, Khaleda went to Old Dhaka’s
Dholaikhal area through Tantibazar-Ray Shaheb Bazar Road.
Thousands of BNP leaders and activists greeted her motorcade lining
along the street.
BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia on Wednesday described the ruling Awami
League government as ‘corrupt and unreasonable’ and said her party
would continue its movement to bring it down.
Khaleda said her party ‘would not allow’ the next general polls to
take place unless the provision of caretaker government is reinstated.
According to the BNP Chairperson ‘Snakes could be trusted more than
the Awami League’. “This is why we have come down for mass contact…
everyone including the women has to wake up.”
Khaleda Zia was speaking at the first road rally held in Gabtoli, from
where she moves to address the next rally at Kawran Bazar.
The BNP organised five rallies in Dhaka during the ‘mass contact”
campaign on Wednesday.
The BNP Chairperson came on stage at Beauty Cinema Hall (old) at
11:15am, accompanied by party’s standing committee member Tariqul
Islam, BNP city member Abdus Salam and other senior leaders.
Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) and police put in place tight security
measures between Gabtali and Kallyanpur in view of the ‘mass contact’
campaign .
On Tuesday, BNP’s National Standing Committee Member Tariqul Islam
told a news conference that the campaign, meant to garner support for
the long-standing demand of the BNP-led 18-Party Alliance, will be
peaceful.
The government will be forced to concede to their demand after the
large-scale popular participation they were expecting at the mass
contact campaign, he said.
Islam said they were also launching the mass contact campaign to press
the government for checking food prices, creating a neutral judiciary
system and releasing BNP leaders, including its Acting Secretary
General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, who had been charged with
vandalising a vehicle during a strike.
He begged apology for the ‘temporary inconvenience’ caused by the rallies.
The leaders of the opposition alliance will conduct the campaign
across the country. BNP Standing Committee Member Khandker Mosharraf
Hossain will lead the campaign in Chittagong, M K Anwar in Sylhet,
Nazrul Islam Khan in Rajshahi, Mahbubur Rahman in Rangpur, Abdul Moyen
Khan in Khulna and Goyeshwar Chandra Roy in Barisal.
The ruling Awami League leaders have been saying that the programmes
of the opposition aim at thwarting the war crimes trial. Two BNP
leaders are facing war crimes trial alongwith several leaders of its
key ally Jamaat-e-Islami.
