Shawdesh Desk:

Awami League general secretary and road transport and bridges minister Obaidul Quader on Monday urged the Bangladesh Nationalist Party to get prepared for the upcoming general elections without making any excuse.

He made this call while speaking at a press conference at his secretariat office in the morning.

Responding to a statement of BNP secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir that attacks were being carried out to make the field free so that the oppositions could not join the polls, Quader said that such statement of Fakhrul was nothing but a ridiculous and shameless lie.

Even the BNP leaders are afraid of entering the field, while they sit at home calling a movement, he said, adding, ‘We are repeatedly asking the BNP to join the next elections.’

The AL general secretary said that the AL wanted competitive polls as it did not want to score goals on an empty field.

‘If the rivals are strong, the elections will also be competitive ones. The prime minister Sheikh Hasina government wants a good election in Bangladesh. The Awami League heartily wants a good election in the country too,’ he said.

Quader said that the elections were not far away and ‘it is up to you (BNP) whether you would join it with an alliance or come alone. You have to come to the elections — if you want any change the state power, there is no alternative to elections’.

Replying to the statements of other BNP leaders, he said that BNP was suffering from anxiety seeing the popularity of AL president Sheikh Hasina.

He said that the BNP leaders had already realised that it would be quite impossible for them to defeat the ruling party led by Sheikh Hasina.

Mentioning that prime minister Sheikh Hasina’s public welfare-oriented politics put the BNP’s political future in crisis, the AL general secretary said that even though BNP leaders were repeatedly calling for unity, the country’s people were not paying heed to their calls and that was why their twinge was going up.

Claiming that the government is not pushing the BNP into violence, he said that no ruling party wanted to create any instability or anarchic situation in any country.

‘The Sheikh Hasina government wants peace and comfort,’ he added.

Issuing a warning to the BNP leaders, Quader said that if the BNP wanted to create any violence in the name of the movement, the government would do everything necessary to save the lives and properties of the people.

‘There is still time to come to the path of elections shunning the path of hatching plot. You will be dealt with on the field of elections,’ he said.