Next move: BNP searches for alternatives to blockade.

 

The BNP's leaders declared that their movement will not stop until their demand for elections under a nonpartisan interim administration is fulfilled, even after some of its top officials were arrested.

The leadership, however, believes that if blockades are maintained for an extended period of time, they lose their effectiveness and the party loses the support of the public that they have gradually gained.

The movement's leaders are currently preparing to launch a few new initiatives.

"The programs will differ from one another. said a senior leader, who wished to remain anonymous, stated, "The new programs may involve blockades, hartals, and sieges of establishments.

After its October 28 rally, the BNP observed a nationwide dawn-to-dusk hartal, a three-day blockade and called a two-day blockade from tomorrow.

People do not like it when a blockade continues for days, and that is what happened during BNP's movement ahead of the January 5, 2014, election, said party leaders.

Contacted last night, Abdul Moyeen Khan, a standing committee member of the party, said, "We will continue our democratic movement until the government bows down."

The BNP standing committee convened on November 1st night to deliberate on the current political climate and devise a plan of action for its movement.

According to the committee members, the government thwarted the BNP's October 28 protest by deciding to hold the national election without the participation of the BNP and its allies in politics.

They also discussed how police began arresting opposition leaders and activists after Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina termed the BNP a terrorist party and said its leaders must learn a lesson.

They also voiced concerns that BNP activists will be detained by law enforcement until the election, with no one being freed in time for voting. This month, the Election Commission is probably going to release the polling timetable. The first week of January is most likely when the election will take place.

"This is why we do not have any choice but to continue our movement," said another senior leader.

The BNP says at least 4,847 leaders and activists, including its Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, two standing committee members, three joint secretaries general, have been arrested over the last 11 days.

Many leaders of the party have been staying away from their houses to avoid getting arrested.

Since most of the leaders are either in jail or on the run, there is a risk that activists would get confused, said insiders, adding that that is why the party's acting chairman Tarique Rahman regularly talks to district-level leaders and coordinates the movement.

According to Moyeen Khan, the party's policymakers also oversee the national opposition movement aimed at reestablishing democracy.

"The BNP is a democratically-based party. In addition to the top leadership, its power is found in its workers at the grassroots level and in the mid- and local-level leaders. "It would be incorrect to claim that the top leaders are running away, even though they are being unlawfully detained everywhere we look," he Said.