Differences on action council are over

The liaison committee of the BNP-led opposition alliance will chart fresh action programmes in a couple of days to step up the one-point movement to topple the Awami League government.

BNP vice-chairman M Shamsul Islam MP, who is representing the main opposition party in the liaison committee, said the committee will definitely sit within a day or two, hopefully today, to put things into place for formation of the Action Council.

He said one or two meetings will be necessary to complete the process of formation of the council.

Besides, the committee will discuss the next course of action and strategies for future movement. He hinted a series of hartal and non-stop action programmes in the days to come.

Replying to a question, he said the differences on formation of the Action Council are over and that a circular on guidelines regarding formation of the council will be sent to all city, district, thana, ward and union committees very soon. Secretaries-general of the four parties will sign the circular.

The alliance, which had earlier vowed to launch a militant anti-government movement after the Eid, is determined to create a "mass upsurge" by announcing programmes like hartal, siege and road and rail blockade.

Sources at the opposition camps said that the policymakers of the alliance partners have agreed to go ahead with tougher, non-stop programmes to force the AL government to step aside by this year.

"We are determined to topple the government by the year 2000, and we will announce the type of programmes needed to create a mass upsurge against the AL," said a top BNP leader. "We will try to pick up the movement within the quickest possible time."

He also hinted that there would be programmes like demonstration, mass contact, public meetings and hartal from the current month to intensify the movement.

Since the alliance was formed in January 6 last year, the opposition has enforced more than 55 hartals, including 30 countrywide ones. More than 20 people were killed and 100 others wounded in political clashes last year.

IOJ leader Abdul Matin said there were some technical problems between BNP and JP chiefs over the structure of the Action Council, "but we have succeeded in overcoming those".

Top-ranking leaders of the alliance said BNP chief Khaleda Zia and Jatiya party supremo HM Ershad at the meeting on the Eid day agreed to sink their differences over formation of the Action Council and other issues for the interest of the movement.

During the 20-minute meeting, sources said, they discussed the post-Eid movement and expressed their determination to intensify the current movement.

BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia also talked to Jamaat-e-Islami chief Golam Azam over telephone on the Eid day.

The three leaders will instruct their respective party policymakers and liaison representatives not to make any delay in taking up fresh programmes.

A senior BNP leader said the government, which is planning to unilaterally declare schedule for the Upazila elections, will in fact help the opposition intensify the movement.