Dhaka, Bangladesh (BBN)- The Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) chairperson, Khaleda Zia, is likely to announce a series of programs along with an ‘ultimatum’ to the government from a planned rally in the capital in the last week of April.
A member of the BNP standing committee told New Age, a local newspaper, on Friday that opposition ‘18 party’ alliance would organise a rally in the capital likely towards the end of April.
From the rally Khaleda Zia would spell out guidelines for overall movement and taking it to a final stage, he said.
Before the planned rally, BNP may enforce a fresh spell of hartals and a token sit-in program, he said.
The BNP standing committee member said future programs to take the movement to a final stage might include a series of hartals, blockade, siege and ‘non-cooperation’ movement during the month of May or September-October.
On April 10, Khaleda Zia sat in a meeting with BNP’s policymaking body at her Gulshan office to determine the next course of action.
After enforcing a countrywide 36-hour general strike in April 9-10, the BNP-led alliance did not announce any fresh agitation program.
The movement is being carried out to press a number of issues, including release of the senior opposition leaders, including acting BNP secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, and to restoration of the provision for non-party caretaker government in the constitution to oversee the general election.
The party insiders said BNP activists might go for ‘courting arrest’ if the government continued arresting its senior leaders in ‘false’ cases.
It was previously announced that Khaleda would announce the next programs of movement from a rally on April 10 in the capital. But it was postponed on April 7.
According to the party insiders, the rally was postponed considering that the alliance would not be able to hold a huge gathering like the April 6 rally of Hefajat-e-Islam at Shapla Chattar.
The alliance enforced hartal in April 9-10 after the arrest of BNP’s senior and mid-level leaders, including Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, Moudud Ahmed, Mirza Abbas, Goyeshwar Chandra Roy, Abdullah Al Noman, Barkatullah Bulu, Shahiduddin Chowdhury Anne and Syed Moazzem Hossain Alal on April 7.
It was learnt that BNP could not finalise its next course of action as some of its allies were busy with Hefajat-e-Islam programs in different parts of the country.
A member of the BNP standing committee told New Age on Friday that they could not finalize the next program as some of its partners which were also linked to Hefajat were busy outside Dhaka in connection with the Islamist group’s program.
BBN/SSR/AD-14Apr13-6:41 pm (BST)
