BNP meet to emphasise demo, polls simultaneously

The Bangladesh Nationalist Partys (BNP's) executive committee set to meet Saturday may focus on dual strategies of contesting the next general elections, if relevant, and holding demonstration for realising its demand for polls-time neutral government.

The meeting, the largest platform of the party, is expected to discuss the BNP's next political course if the party chairperson Khaleda Zia is convicted in the Zia Orphanage Trust case in its verdict on 8 February.

A few senior leaders of the BNP, preferring not to be named, said BNP chairperson Khaleda Zia may ask the party leaders and workers to show restraint, even if a 'negative verdeict' is delivered in her case.

Khaleda Zia is likely to listen to the party leaders at the executive committee meeting scheduled to be held at Le Meridien hotel in Dhaka.

"It's important to understand the mindset of the party leaders at the grassroots level," one of the leaders said about the agenda of the meeting.

Khaleda Zia will then make instructions for the party men in view of the country's latest political situation.

The meeting may urge the party leaders and activists to get ready for both elections later this year and movement for the election-time neutral government.

The BNP leaders believe the Awami League wants to keep the opposition party out of the next elections the way the rulers held a one-sided polls in 2014.

"So, the BNP cannot fall into the trap of the Awami League govenment," a leader said.

Some 700 leaders including 502 executive committee members are expected to attend the meeting to be chaired by BNP chairperson Khaleda Zia.

The former prime minister, Khaleda Zia, may call upon her party leaders and activists to avoid violent means of protest against possible judgement of the Zia Orphanage Trust case that implicated herself, the BNP's senior vice chairman Tarique Rahman and 4 others.

A Dhaka court has fixed 8 February to deliver the verdict.

BNP standing committee members, advisors to the BNP chairperson and presidents of the district units across the country have been invited to the meeting.