Khaleda attends no public rally outside Dhaka since 2015

Main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party chairperson Khaleda Zia did not attend any public meeting outside Dhaka in the past three years although several political and national issues had emerged during the period. Party leaders claimed that the reasons included denial of permission to hold public meetings, party’s reorganizational process, its engagement in local government elections coupled with many leaders and activists being on the run to avoid cases filed against them during the political turmoil in 2013-15. Khaleda, also former prime minister, lastly addressed a public meeting in Jamalpur in September 2014 and a workers’ rally in Dhaka city in 2016 to mark May Day, the party leaders said. BNP secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir told New Age in the past week that the party chairperson had addressed a good number of public meetings before she was barred from going to Gazipur to address a public meeting in December 2014. The BNP-led alliance announced a programme for a rally at Bhawal Badre Alam College playground in Gazipur on December 27, 2014 with Khaleda as chief guest. Later, Gazipur district unit Chhatra League, the ruling Awami League-backd student organisation, announced a rally at the same place and time. Fakhrul said that Khaleda could not go outside Dhaka to address public meeting as local police did not allow BNP to hold public meetings. Besides, many BNP leaders and activists, including Khaleda Zia, were implicated in many ‘false’ cases, he said. The BNP chief virtually was confined to issuing statements, holding press conference and addressing indoor programmes in Dhaka on vital issues. BNP has been demanding the next general election under a non-party neutral government since the repeal of constitutional provision for election-time non-party caretaker government through the 15th amendment to the constitution in 2011. All opposition parties, including the BNP-led alliance boycotted the general election held on January 5, 2014 under Awami League government led by prime minister Sheikh Hasina. Khaleda did not raise the issues of political persecution and election under neutral government holding public meetings in districts after 2014. Some grassroots-level leaders said that field-level leaders and activists would have been geared up if Khaleda had visited district headquarters particularly after the party’s ‘futile’ countrywide three-month-long non-stop transport blockade from January 2015 demanding a fresh election under a neutral government. Khaleda remained confined to holding news conference on vital issues like government move to set up coal-fired power plant at Rampal that posed threat to the world’s largest mangrove forest the Sunderbans and its surrounding environment, ecology, fish, plants and water. The party leaders said that they expected Khaleda to visit Rampal to address a public meeting or lead a long march to Rampal to put pressure on the government to retreat from its move. They also thought that the former prime minister would launch mass contact across the country, particularly divisional headquarters, against the deals and memorandums of understanding signed between Dhaka and New Delhi during prime minister Sheikh Hasina’s visit in India in April 2017. BNP termed the deals and memorandums against the interest of Bangladesh and its people. BNP senior joint secretary general Ruhul Kabir Rizvi said that the party chairperson could not visit outside Dhaka as she was engaged in the party’s reorganizational process as well as the party was engaged in elections of local government bodies, including municipal councils and union parisahds. He, however, said that Khaleda was likely to go for organisational tour and address public meetings in districts after her possible visit to London in this month. Rizvi said that the party chief’s district tour might begin after Eid-ul-Azha to be celebrated in September.

News Courtesy: www.newagebd.net