BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir on Tuesday predicted that a mass uprising will be created across the country through their party’s rallies in divisional cities scheduled to begin on Wednesday. "We hope there will be a mass uprising through the rallies.  People in their thousands will participate in the rallies. We’ll topple this regime through our peaceful programmes,” he said. Fakhrul came up with comments while talking to journalists after the dialogue with the Islami Oikya Jote and the Democratic League, the two components of the 20-party alliance, at the BNP chairperson's Gulshan office. As part of the party’s planned divisional programmes, Chattogram city unit BNP is going to organise a rally on Polo Ground in the port city tomorrow (on Wednesday) where Mirza Fakhrul will speak as the chief guest. This will be the first divisional rally in protest against the ongoing power crisis, unusual price hikes in daily essentials and killing of five opposition activists in police firing in Bhola, Narayanganj, Munshiganj and Jashore during BNP’s agitation.   Read: BNP determined to build non-communal Bangladesh: Fakhrul As part of its move to continue the pace of the ongoing movement, BNP on September 27 announced to hold public rallies in 10 divisional cities. The party will conclude the divisional rallies through a huge mass gathering in Dhaka city on December 10. Talks with two parties About the discussions with the two parties, Fakhrul said they have been holding dialogues with different political parties for forging national unity against the current unelected and looter regime that has snatched democracy and human rights. “We’re now holding that second round of talks and we’re talking about the core demands of the simultaneous movement,” he said. Fakhrul said they have already sat with 11 parties in their second phase of political dialogue. “We’ve agreed to initiate a simultaneous movement to force the current regime to step down.”  Islami Oikya Jote Chairman Advocate Maulana Abdur Rakib and Democratic League General Secretary Saifuddin Ahmed Moni led the delegations of their respective parties in the talks. Nazrul Islam Khan, a standing committee member of BNP and 20-party coordinator, was also present during the meetings with the two parties. BNP began its second phase of dialogue with the first meeting with the Kalyan Party on October 2 last. The party also sat in talks with the Jatiya Party (Kazi Zafar) and Oli Ahmed’s LDP, Kalyan Party, Labour Party, National People’s Party, Gonotantrik Party (Jagpa) and Muslim League to finalise the demands and issues of the anti-government movement. Earlier, BNP had discussions with 23 parties during its first phase of talks that began on May 24 to work out the outline for launching a united movement to 'restore' democracy and people’s voting rights.

Bangladesh will not conduct any new mass Covid inoculation drive as the supply of vaccine doses is much lower than the demand, said Health Minister Zahid Maleque on Monday. “No more mass inoculation drives will be held in the country now as we do not have adequate vaccines in hand and we’ll not use the word ‘mass’ in future,” he told reporters at the Secretariat. “We will call people to take jabs whenever we have vaccines in our hand,” he said. “Those who will get SMS will go to the centres and we do not want to see any no long queues in front of vaccination centres,” said the minister. READ: No alternative to mass vaccination of apparel workers: BGMEA  Some eight crore people or more can be brought under Covid vaccination within next January and February if the vaccines are available, he hoped.                                     “A total of 60 lakh doses of Pfizer vaccine will arrive within September in the country and some will arrive this month,” he said adding “We have done a lot of work with vaccines in the past 15 days and many orders have been placed.”   A total of 7.5 crore doses of vaccine has been ordered from China. Besides, we have also got offers from the World Health Organisation (WHO) and we have procured those. I think there will be no scarcity of vaccines,” said Zahid. “If we get the 16 crore doses of vaccine, we will be able to bring eight crore people under the vaccination programme which will arrive within December,” he said. “There is a directive to vaccinate workers and we are giving Covid jabs to front liners. All the factory workers will be vaccinated in phases as we want all citizens to get Covid jabs and be safe. The mortality rate among those who received the jabs is less,” he added. READ: Mass vaccination only solution to Covid crisis: GM Quader “Now the process to get second doses is underway and we are giving the second dose one month after receiving first dose and the prime minister has already asked to reduce the gap between the two doses and we are thinking to reduce it within 15-20 days,” said the minister. The minister also urged the country's people to follow health guidelines.