By IANS,
Dhaka : Ahead of Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s visit to India, opposition leader Khaleda Zia Friday warned of “a tough movement” against “any deal with India against the interest of the people”.
Zia also alleged that the country was “being governed from somewhere else”.
“We don’t know who is now running this country. What I know is the government is not governing the country. The country is being governed from somewhere else,” Khaleda Zia told a rally of Jatiyatabadi Chhatra Dal, the student wing of her Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP).
Her comments came as the two South Asian neighbours prepared for summit level talks likely to take place in New Delhi on Jan 11.
Zia’s arch political rival, Sheikh Hasina, is to pay a three-day visit to India during which five agreements are likely to be signed.
Zia, a two-term prime minister (1991-96 and 2001-06) and her Islamist allies lost the parliamentary election badly in December 2008.
She repeated her charge Friday that the elections were rigged and that Hasina, her Awami League party and an alliance of centrist and left-of-centre parties were brought to power “by outsiders”.
“It is clear to the people of this country what type of election it was and how subtly they’ve rigged votes in the polls.
“And this is why, they are liable to those who brought them to power illegally. They are accountable to their gurus at home and abroad. They are keeping the promises they made to their gurus, instead of fulfilling the pledge made to the people,” she was quoted as saying.
Zia has boycotted parliament since June and has so far refused to attend the session beginning Monday next.
Her party leaders say she is demanding that cases against her and her politician-son Tarique Rahman, should be withdrawn as a precondition to her participation.
Zia has voiced her opposition to the Hasina government’s policies that she says were “dictated from outside”.
On Thursday, Zia demanded clarification from the government on graft charges levelled in the awarding of power contracts.
During her New Delhi visit, Hasina is due to sign a pact with India for purchase of power.