Govt wants to cross polls hurdles by jailing BNP leaders: Fakhrul

BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir on Saturday alleged the government is plotting to cross the hurdles of the next election easily by promptly jailing senior leaders of their party in ‘false’ cases and making them unfit for polls like its Chairperson Khaleda Zia.

Speaking at a huge public rally here, he also equivocally said no election will be held in Bangladesh as long as Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina steps down by handing over power to a non-party caretaker government.

“This regime has not kept anything unharmed. We don’t now get justice. They file false, fabricated and fictitious cases against us and convict us. Our all senior leaders have been facing 10-60 cases,” the BNP leader said.

Fakhrul said the government is now trying to hasten the trial process of the ‘false’ cases filed against the BNP leaders. “This means that they (govt) want to easily overcome the hurdles of election by throwing those of us now leading the movement in jail the way our leader Khaleda Zia was jailed by convicting her in false cases.”

He, however, warned that the country’s people will not let the government this time hold any more lopsided national elections. As part of BNP’s divisional programme, the party’s Cumilla city unit arranged the rally on Cumilla Town Hall ground.

Thousands of leaders and activists of BNP and its associate bodies joined the rally in Cumilla amid relative ease with no transport strike this time.