Hasina invites Khaleda to Gono Bhaban Monday

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina talks with BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia over phone Saturday evening. Photo: PMO

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has invited BNP chairperson Khaleda Zia to Gono Bhaban, her official residence, Monday evening to discuss about polls-time government.

The PM urged the opposition leader twice to withdraw the call for 60-hour hartal, which is slated to begin at 6:00am tomorrow.

"I am inviting you to Gono Bhaban on October 28. You will have some food with us in the evening," Hasina told her counterpart.

The PM sought a list of how many people would accompany Khaleda during her visit.

The much-talked-about call came around 6:30pm.

At the beginning of the conversation, the PM was seen telling Khaleda that she did not know why Khaleda's phone was dead.

"I will get it checked tomorrow," she added.

The PM was at Gono Bhaban when she made the call.

AL leaders Amir Hossain Amu, Tofail Ahmed, Syed Ashraful Islam, PM's adviser HT Imam and Moshiur Rahman were present there with the PM during the call.

The BNP chairperson was at her Gulshan residence when she talked with the PM. BNP acting secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir and the chairperson's press secretary Maruf Kamal Khan were present there.

Earlier, the PM phoned Khaleda at 1:15pm "but failed to reach" despite trying for half an hour, PM’s press secretary Abul Kalam Azad told The Daily Star.

While addressing a rally at Suhrawardy Udyan yesterday, Khaleda threatened with a 60-hour hartal from tomorrow morning if the government does not initiate talks with her party by today over formation of a non-partisan election-time government.

The BNP chief on October 21 proposed forming a non-partisan polls-time government headed by a respected person to be chosen by consensus between the ruling and opposition parties and that 10 advisers would come from the caretaker governments of 1996 and 2001.

Khaleda came up with the proposal in a counter move to the prime minister's recent offer to form an all-party election-time government.

In her proposal, the PM however didn’t clarify who would head the all-party polls-time government.

On October 22, BNP secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, on behalf of the BNP-led 18-party alliance sent a letter to ruling AL General Secretary Syed Ashraful Islam for holding a dialogue on Khaleda’s formula on polls-time government.