By Mohammad Al-Masum Molla in The Daily Star, Nov 28, 2023
Struggling to bring its oust-government movement to a climax, the BNP now plans to resist the January 7 parliamentary election.
In order to press home its demands for polls under a non-partisan administration, the party has been enforcing hartals and blockades since October 29, the day after its rally was foiled following clashes and violence.
Meanwhile, the Election Commission has announced the polls schedule, and the ruling Awami League and Jatiya Party have unveiled their nominations for 298 and 289 seats respectively.
BNP leaders said their movement will see some changes in strategy as the focus will now be on ways to resist the vote.
They added that their campaign to oust the government appears to be running out of steam due to a flurry of electoral activities by the ruling party, especially in urban areas.
“We still demand polls under a non-partisan government. But for that to happen, we must resist the vote now.”
He, however, could not elaborate on the new strategy.
Since October 29, the BNP has calledhartals and blockades for four daysevery week. It also rejected the election schedule, saying that free and fair polls cannot be held under the AL government and that the EC announced the schedule as per the government’s will.
The party yesterday again called blockade for Wednesday and hartal for Thursday as part of its one-point movement.
BNP Senior Joint Secretary General Ruhul Kabir Rizvi yesterday said that since October 28 till yesterday, at least 17 people were killed while over 17,010 party leaders and activists were arrested and more than 435 cases were filed against the opposition members.
The party leaders and activists have been under pressure due to the “repressive measures” taken by the government.
Earlier, BNP boycotted the January 5, 2014 election, with the demand for a caretaker government, which was scrapped through a court verdict. It then announced it would resist the vote and enforced hartals and blockades, but all in vain.
About whether the party would fail again, Iqbal Mahmud Tuku, a BNP standing committee member, said, “A fascist government can do anything. We are in a movement and its strategy changes from time to time. That does not mean we’ve failed.”
He also said their movement is to avoid a “staged voting”.
https://www.thedailystar.net/news/bangladesh/politics/news/resisting-polls-bnps-mind-3480606
