BNP Senior Joint Secretary General Rahul Kabir Rizvi on Wednesday said the current Awami League government will be ousted through a mass uprising like the autocratic ruler HM Ershad in the 1990s.
“Dictator Ershad was forced to resign on December 6, 1990 in the face of public outrage. This government also won’t be spared from the anger of people. Their downfall would be ensured by a mass uprising in the month of victory,” he said.
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The BNP leader came up with the comment while speaking at a brief rally after a sudden procession together with some party followers on the road in front of Terokhadia Stadium in Rajshahi at 6:30am in support of the opposition’s 48-hour blockade programme that will end at 6am on Friday.
He said the country’s people have woken up now to unseat the current regime from power through a strong street movement. “The people of the country, including the students, will remain on the streets until they achieve a victory. They will not return home without a victory.”
On December 6, 1990, military dictator Ershad stepped down in the face of a mass upsurge and handed power over to a caretaker government ending his nine years of autocratic rule which began by grabbing power in a coup on March 24, 1982.
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BNP and other democratic parties have been observing December 6 as 'Democracy Day' since then.
As BNP and other opposition parties have been on a movement protesting the Januray-7 election schedule announced by the Election Commission, they did not announce any separate programme to mark the day.
The BNP and like-minded parties enforced another 48-hour road-rail-waterway blockade across the country from 6am on Wednesday. It is the 10th round of the blockade programme of the opposition parties since October 31.
Rizvi went out of Dhaka for the first time and took out a sudden procession in Rajshahi since October 28 after violent clashes between the police and opposition activists in the capital centring BNP’s public rally at Nayapaltan.
He, however, brought out sudden processions in different areas of the capital during BNP’s blockade and hartal programmes when most of the party senior leaders either got arrested or went into hiding.
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Rizvi warned that the people of Bangladesh will not let the Awami League government hold another lopsided election. "Awami League, which has become isolated from people, is once again moving ahead with a plan to arrange a stage-managed election. They thought that they could get away with organising controlled elections like 2014 and 2018. But it won't be allowed to happen this time.”
He said people will resist the government’s move to hold a “blueprint election” at any cost. “People will destroy their (govt’s) plan to hold any elections without voters.”