The ruling Awami League yesterday categorically said the next parliamentary election would be held as per the constitution and with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in the office.
“BNP leader Begum Zia said election will not be allowed without her party. Just wait and see… Election will be held as per the constitution. If you have the capacity to resist, show it, people under the leadership of Sheikh Hasina will resist you,” Obaidul Quader, AL general secretary, said.
Addressing a discussion at Banani field organised by ALto mark the “democracy victory day”, Quader urged the BNP to contest the next elections.
BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia at a programme on Tuesday said no election would be allowed in the country without them and it would not be possible to keep them out of the polls.
Quader, also road transport and bridges minister, said the next election would not wait for anyone as time and tide wait for none.“The electoral train will not give any halt at BNP's station,” he added.b
Issuing a note of caution, the AL leader said if BNP did not contest the next national polls, the party's future would be threatened. “BNP's existence will be at stake like the endangered species. Their fate will be worse than Muslim league's,” he observed.
Quader also spoke at a programme held on Bangabandhu Avenue in the capital on the same occasion.
The last parliamentary election was held on January 5, 2014 amid controversy as BNP, the main opposition in the immediate past parliament, and most other political parties boycotted the polls terming it “farcical and one-sided”.
As a result, at least 153 lawmakers were elected uncontested in the 10th parliament.
In 2015, on the first anniversary of the election day, violence erupted across the country centring rallies and counter rallies.
The BNP was not granted permission for a rally on that day. Police kept BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia confined to her Gulshan office by blocking the streets around it with sand-laden trucks.
Only the ruling AL men were on the streets, celebrating the day as the “victory day for democracy”.
An angry Khaleda called for a countrywide non-stop blockade from January 6 in an attempt to topple the government. The blockade went on until the last week of March.
At least 95 people were killed and about 1,500 injured in arson attacks on public vehicles during the blockade. Another 45 got killed in “shootouts” with lawenforcers and about half of the dead were allegedly involved in the arsons.
