Daily Bangla Times: The main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party secretary general, Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, said on Sunday that the Awami League had killed democracy several times and that BNP founder Ziaur Rahman and its chairperson, Khaleda Zia, had saved it.

Addressing a discussion programme organised by Zia Parishad at Hotel Purbani, Fakhrul said that the Awami League had introduced one-party rule BAKSAL in the country, killing democracy, and now it was doing the same by seizing people’s voting rights.

Mirza Fakhrul said that the Awami League government had destroyed all the institutions of the country, failed to establish the rule of law, and also taken recourse to repression to silence the voices of the opposition parties.

BNP standing committee member Amir Khasru Mahmud Chowdhury said that the Awami League had destroyed the electoral system of the country and been engulfed in corruption.

Political scientist and academic Dilara Chowdhury termed the Awami League an autocratic political party, saying that it had never believed in democracy.

Zia Parishad chairman Mohammad Abdul Quddus, who chaired the programme, called on the people to wage a mass movement to realise BNP’s 10-point demand.

Secretary general of the organisation, Mohammad Emtaj Hossain, academic Abdul Latif Masum, central leaders of the organization, M Salimullah Khan, and ABM Obaidil Islam, also spoke at the programme.

Speaking in a separate discussion earlier in the morning at Dhaka Reporters Unity, Mirza Fakhrul said that people would not fall into the government’s ‘election trap.’

Jatiya Ganatantrik Party organised the event with its president Lutfar Rahman in the chair.

Fakhrul said that the Awami League government had set up the administration in such a way that if it oversaw the election, it would only be a farce and only its candidates would win.

Accusing the government of setting the old trap again to hold a staged national election, BNP secretary general Mirza Fakhrul said that no plot would work this time as people had woken up to establish their voting rights.

He alleged that the Awami League never tolerated dissidents because the party held a feudalistic characteristic.

‘They are devising an evil plan to play games with the election and stage a farce so that they can get elected again. But the people of Bangladesh will not fall into that trap anymore. You have fooled people repeatedly, but you will not succeed this time,’ the BNP leader said.

Fakhrul said their party wants the caretaker government system not to go to power but to restore people’s voting and other rights.

‘We want every person to exercise their right and cast their vote for whoever they want, and thus an elected parliament will be formed.’

The BNP leader alleged that the government had been deceiving people as they thought the country’s people did not understand anything.

‘We are coming out of this situation. We are sacrificing lives. We have already sacrificed 17 lives while several thousand leaders and activists have been arrested and jailed,’ he said.

He called upon people from all walks of life to intensify the current movement, realise their rights, and force the government to accept the demand for holding the next election under a caretaker government.

‘We have a very short time in our hands as they are conspiring to put on a show in the name of the election to dodge the global community. They are now not obstructing us from holding meetings like before. This is their trick,’ the BNP leader observed.

BNP leaders Aman Ullah Aman, Abdus Salam, NDP leader Fariduzzaman Farhad, Bikalpadhara Bangladesh faction leader Nurul Amin Bepari, and JAGPA secretary general SM Shahdat took part in the discussion.