File image of former Bangladesh prime minister Khaleda Zia. Reuters
New Delhi: Bangladesh Information and Broadcasting Minister and Awami League Joint General Secretary Dr Hasan Mahmud has hit out at the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP).
According to a report in the Dhaka Tribune, Hasan Mahmud said, “BNP is a barrier in the way of practicing democracy and in deepening the democratic governance system in Bangladesh.”
“BNP also likes Pakistan. That is why they want to follow Pakistan, but a caretaker government will never return in Bangladesh,” added Mahmud.
“The present government will perform as the election-period government like all other parliamentary democratic countries across the globe,” Mahmud added further.
BNP demands caretaker government
Tens of thousands of opposition supporters rallied in Bangladesh’s capital in December 2022 to demand the government of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina resign and install a caretaker before the next general elections expected to be held in early 2024.
Hasina and her ruling Awami League party, which returned to power in 2018 for the third consecutive time, have repeatedly ruled out the Opposition’s demand, saying a caretaker government goes against the spirit of the country’s constitution.
An election-time caretaker government system was introduced in the constitution in 1996 to oversee national elections, but it was nullified in 2011 under Hasina through passage of a constitutional amendment and after the Supreme Court ruled the system was contradictory to the constitution.
The BNP boycotted the election in 2014, and the results of the vote in 2018 were disputed because of allegations of vote rigging by the ruling party, which won with an overwhelming majority.
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