By IANS
Dhaka : With Awami League chief Sheikh Hasina and Bangladesh Nationalist Party’s (BNP) Khaleda Zia in jail, the two main parties of Bangladesh have said they will not join talks on electoral reforms beginning Sep 12.
While former prime minister Sheikh Hasina has been in jail since July 16, her rival, another former premier, Khaleda, was jailed Monday.
Awami League’s acting chief Zillur Rahman said Zia should be given full opportunity to defend herself. “She [Khaleda] was a prime minister of the country; so we think she has a right to justice as a citizen of the country,” he was quoted as saying in The Daily Star.
Political parties have said the current ban on political activity, imposed under a national emergency since January, should be lifted at least partially to allow indoor discussions among political activists to allow consultations with the Election Commission.
The government has made no commitment so far.
While Awami League’s squabbling leaders have closed ranks, media reports Tuesday said a split in the BNP was imminent.
This was triggered by Zia’s action in replacing the party’s secretary general, Abdul Mannan Bhuiyan, a little before she was taken to court.
About 130 BNP leaders, including a few standing committee members, former ministers and lawmakers in a joint statement rejected Bhuiyan’s expulsion and termed the decision as “undemocratic and unconstitutional”.
“Khaleda Zia herself pushed the party towards a rift through the undemocratic decision of expelling the secretary general and the joint secretary general,” read the statement, signed by Lt Gen (retd) Mahbubur Rahman, member of the national standing committee, the highest policy making forum of the party.
Zia has been the unquestioned leader of the party ever since she took charge of it in 1981 after her husband, President Ziaur Rahman, was assassinated.