Staff Correspondent

BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir on Friday alleged that the government has again started a game in the name of election ahead of the upcoming national polls.

"People now don’t have the right to vote. We couldn't cast our votes in 2014 and in 2018. As the election is approaching, the Awami League government has started indulging in the election game again,” he said.

The BNP leader made the remarks while speaking at a rally of Jatiyatabadi Sramik Dal in front of the party’s Nayapaltan central office protesting the price hikes in essentials and ‘terrible’ loadshedding.

Thousands of leaders and activists of Sramik Dal joined the rally braving the inclement weather.

Fakhrul said a fair and credible election is crucial for the country to restore democracy. “There is a need to arrange a free and fair election under a neutral non-partisan government. The entire nation is united for arranging the next polls under a neutral government.”

He said the country’s people will not allow the ruling party to hold the election without a non-partisan caretaker government.

The BNP leader said the government must resign, dissolve parliament and hand over power to a neutral caretaker government, creating a scope for holding the next polls in a fair and credible manner. “There’s no other alternative to it.”

He said the Awami League government has taken away all the rights of the common people in a very planned way by staying in power for 14 years by force.

“The labourer brothers, who have gathered here, are being denied fair wages and they’re badly struggling for lack of employment opportunities. But those who are in power and those who are with them are indulging in plundering and making money illegally.

They’re siphoning off their ill-gotten money abroad from the country,” Fakhrul observed.

He called upon the workers to get united to take the movement initiated by BNP to the final stage for establishing a welfare state and ensuring their fair wages.