Staff Correspondent: Dhaka, Sept-01,

BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir on Wednesday said the restoration of democracy and the complete release of Khaleda Zia are now the biggest challenges for their party.

"People are now being deprived of the right to vote today for lack of credible elections as the Election Commission has become a subservient institution,” he said.

While talking to reporters after paying homage to Zia, he also said the entire administration and the judiciary have been politicised by establishing a one-party despotic regime in disguise.”

Fakhrul, along with party standing committee members and some senior leaders, placed wreaths at BNP founder Ziaur Rahman’s grave, marking the party’s 43rd founding anniversary.

On September 1, 1978, late President Ziaur Rahman founded the party with a 19-point programme to build a self-reliant Bangladesh.

BNP and its associate bodies took up various programmes, including discussion, to mark the day.

He said BNP stepped into 44 years today (Wednesday) after 43 years of various struggles. “The biggest challenges for BNP are now to restore democracy in the country and free Khaleda Zia.”

Fakhrul said BNP is standing on its own feet despite various obstacles and repressive acts. “Our 35 lakh leaders and activists have been facing false cases while 500 others have been made disappeared.”

He said they are working to reorganise their party and making them ready to take to the streets. “We hope we’ll be able to play a big role in restoring democracy next year and the year after.”

Fakhrul recalled Zia’s role in introducing multi-party democracy, the free-market economy in the country and taking it forward with various reforms and effective steps.

“When the enemies of the independence assassinated Ziaur Rahman, everyone thought that the BNP might lose its existence. But his worthy successor and the uncompromising leader of democracy, Zia, took the helm of the party. She gave democracy an institutional shape through a long struggle for nine years.”

He said it is unfortunate for the nation that Khaleda has been kept in jail as the government has implicated her in ‘false’ cases.

He came down hard on Liberation War Affairs Minister AKM Mozammel Haque for what he said making various remarks about a freedom fighter like Ziaur Rahman, his body and grave. “Let him (Haque) prove that he was a freedom fighter.”

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