The Opposition in Bangladesh has set a deadline of 5pm, Thursday, for the government to meet their demands, failing which they have threatened to launch a “tougher movement”, in addition to what they had done in the recent weeks to stop the election set for January 5. .
The warning came from BNP spokesperson Salauddin Ahmed in a video message ,Wednesday, on the fifth day of the 131-hour blockade which saw scores of people dead and injured .
Over 40 people have died across the country in violence during the back-to-back opposition-sponsored blockade.
Meanwhile, the ruling Awami League has decided to go for the Jan. 5 elections as planned by the Election Commission . The decisions came amid the BNP and jamaat-e-Islami-led alliance’s call for Sheikh Hasina to step down and make way for a ‘non-party’ caretaker government to supervise the parliamentary polls, a demand for which the national constitution must be amended .
Meanwhile, local media have reported that the law enforcers entered the house of Jatiya Party Chairman HM Ershad, in Baridhara of Dhaka, hours after he directed his partymen to resign from the interim government to oversee the polls, reversing his decision to stay away from the election.
Ershad, the former military dictator-cum politician, changed his decisions quite frequently, even to his well wishers facing utter embarrassment as he directed his partymen to withdraw their candidatures after filing nomination papers to contest the polls