Govt tries to hang on to power with external help: BNP

BNP today alleged that ruling Awami League has visited India to meet its desperate bid to hang on to power again through holding a lopsided election with the help of external power.

"Did you (Awami League) visit India for a negotiation to hang on to power? Awami League understood through different channels that it wouldn't get more than 20 to 22 seats in the next general election. And thus, it undertook desperate efforts to hold a lopsided election with the external help," BNP Senior Joint Secretary Rizvi Ahmed said.

Referring to Awami League Joint General Secretary Mahbubul Alam's remark that the party will remain in power as long as Sheikh Hasina is alive, Rizvi said the government’s real autocratic nature has been exposed through such remarks.

Addressing a press conference at the party's Nayapaltan central office in Dhaka this noon, the BNP leader said the ruling quarter has established its all-out control in the country by creating a democratic vacuum in a planned way.

The BNP leader, however, warned that the people of Bangladesh will not give the ruling quarter any such scope to make its mission a success by holding a one-sided election.

A 19-member Awami League delegation, led by its General Secretary Obaidul Quader visited India and met Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and its top leaders of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) last week.

After returning home from India, Awami League Joint General Secretary Hanif at a programme at Mahanagar Natya Mancha in Dhaka on Wednesday said, "As long as Sheikh Hasina is alive, she will remain the prime minister and Awami league will be there in power."

"The comment revealed the government's dangerous plan to push the country into a civil war by establishing its previous one-party Baksal rule," he said.

The country's democracy has already been exiled while the people's freedom of speech has also been snatched due to the government's indulgence in corruption and misdeeds, he added.

About the citizenship of BNP acting chairman Tarique Rahman now in London, Rizvi said the government has brought the fake and baseless issue forefront when party's chairperson Khaleda Zia has been passing her days in jail with serious illness.

"It’s nothing but the government's motivated plan to divert people's attention from Khaleda Zia's illness to another direction," he alleged.

He again claimed that Tarique Rahman did not ignore his Bangladeshi citizenship, rather he surrendered his passport for getting asylum in UK.