Effect silent revolution in city polls: Khaleda.
The Bangladesh Nationalist Party chairperson, Khaleda Zia, on Tuesday urged city dwellers to carry out a silent revolution through casting votes for Mirza Abbas and Tabith Awal in Dhaka south and north city mayoral polls. She made the call at a programme organised by Jatiyatabadi Samajik Sangstha, BNP-backed cultural organisation, in front of the party’s Nayapaltan headquarters marking Pahela Baishakh, the Bangla New Year celebrations. The New Year celebration programme was turned into polls campaign as BNP-backed mayoral candidates Tabith Awal, Mirza Abbas’s wife Afroza Abbas and Adarsha Dhaka Andolon convener Emajuddin Ahamed made appeals to cast votes for the BNP-backed candidates in the city polls slated for April 28.
Hundreds of BNP supporters started thronging to the party office since 2:00pm while the programme formally started at about 3:00pm. Khaleda reached there at about 5:00pm. It was Khaleda’s first public appearance after she returned home on April 5, after a three-month stay at her Gulshan office. Mirza Abbas’s wife and Tabith Awal greeted Khaleda at the function. They later posed with Khaleda showing ‘Mug’, the symbol of Abbas for Dhaka south city polls. ‘The illegal government-backed people [candidates] are doing everything violating the election code of conduct, but they are not allowing us to do any electioneering,’ said Khaleda. She said, ‘I would call the people to carry out a silent revolution through casting votes for Mirza Abbas and Tabith Awal in Dhaka south and north city mayoral polls and for Manzur Alam in Chittagong city polls.’ She said that the BNP was taking part in the city polls as it contested all previous local government polls, but BNP’s demand for general elections still sustained. ‘The illegal government announced the city elections at a time when killings and disappearance were going unabated…They [government] thought that BNP would not contest the elections as it was in movement,’ said Khaleda.
‘People’s mandates in previous city polls have already proved that they want change and they don’t want to see the repressive government anymore,’ she said. ‘The Dhaka city is not liveable…It is the second worst city of the world…Vote for Abbas and Tabith to make a liveable city for all sections of people,’ Khaleda said. Khaleda reached the party office at about 5:00pm, when BNP cultural affairs secretary Gazi Mazharul Anwar, Jatiyatabadi Samajik Sangskritik Sangstha president MA Malek and general secretary Monir Khan received her. Khaleda had last visited the party headquarters to see then ailing BNP joint secretary general Ruhul Kabir Rizvi, now in jail, on October 21, 2013. Huge additional police were deployed at Nayapaltan. Traffic movement was stopped at the roads from Kakrail intersections to Fakirapool in front of BNP office as thousands of BNP activists gathered there.
The BNP chief criticised the government for not allowing JSSS to install stage and set up loudspeaker for the function. ‘Today [Pahela Baishakh] is a good day for all of us — our nation, Bangladesh and people. But the illegal government did not allow us to hold a cultural function even,’ she said. ‘We are living in a country where there is no right for people,’ she said. Paltan police station officer-in-charge Golam Morshed said that Jatiyatabadi Samajik Sangskritik Sangstha obtained permission to arrange the programme on 14 conditions including installation of no stage, using no loudspeaker and holding the programme indoor. Khaleda had last visited the party headquarters to see then ailing BNP joint secretary general Ruhul Kabir Rizvi, now in jail, on October 21, 2013. She attempted to go the Nayapaltan central office on the night of January 3, 2015 to visit Rizvi as he had fallen sick at the office, but failed as the law enforcers laid siege to her Gulshan office keeping her inside. The law enforcers kept her confined to the Gulshan office for several days and she stayed there till April 5, when she appeared before a court and then went to her Gulshan house.
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