BNP announces nationwide silent march on 25 Feb

The BNP has again announced a silent road march programme at the district level on 25 February demanding to lower the prices of energy and daily commodities and to press home its 10-point charter, which includes the current government's resignation, dissolution of the parliament, and an election-time nonpartisan caretaker government.

After holding peaceful protests in metropolitan cities across the country on Saturday, BNP acting office secretary Syed Imran Saleh announced the new programme through a press release on Saturday afternoon.

Earlier on 11 February, the BNP demonstrated a similar road march programme at the union level across the country.

In another press release issued on Saturday afternoon, BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir said, "Disoriented by the mass movement, the government is desperate to detain opposition activists by any means possible."

In a short rally before the march programme at Kazir Dewri in Chattogram city, BNP standing committee member Amir Khasru Mahmud Chowdhury said the Awami League will get a befitting reply from the people if they start playing games about the upcoming general election as they did in 2008, 2014 and 2018.

Claiming that the Awami League is scared, this BNP leader said, "The foreign diplomats stationed at Dhaka are giving a clear message that if the democracy of Bangladesh goes down, then their relations with Bangladesh will also go down. There is no scope this time to get away with vote theft, murder, and forced disappearance."

The Awami League government has become an orphan, so it is now hiding behind the police force for shelter, Khasru said, claiming that the ruling party is "holding nationwide peace rallies with terrorists." 

According to BNP leaders, such a silent form of protest has already helped the party to gain huge support from the countrymen and "will eventually put more pressure on the government." The party's grassroots and elites are all inspired by this political strategy.

As part of the central programme, the party's standing committee member Nazrul Islam Khan, at a march organised by the Sylhet Metropolitan unit BNP, said, "The BNP will march from district to district on 25 February to realise its 10-point demands and the government will not be given any concessions."

Addressing a rally at Satmatha in Rangpur city before the city unit BNP's march on Saturday afternoon, BNP Joint Secretary General Syed Moazzem Hossain Alal said, "The Awami League has become a circus party. When we [BNP] announce a programme, they [Awami League] announce a counter programme immediately. What they are doing in the name of peace rallies reminds us of the peace committee [Shanti Committee] during the Liberation War. It reminds us of those who created unrest in the name of peace."

BNP Vice Chairman Selima Rahman and Barishal Metropolitan BNP Member Secretary Zahidul Kabir Zahid attended the party's march programme in Barishal, along with central and district leaders and activists. A large number of law enforcers were seen present around the BNP march.

AL response to BNP programme

Addressing a peace rally organised by Dhaka Metropolitan South Awami League on Bangabandhu Avenue in the capital on Saturday, the party's General Secretary Obaidul Quader said, "It is not a counter-programme, the Awami League will be on the streets throughout the year." 

"The Awami League will not deviate even so slightly from the constitution and the caretaker government system must be forgotten," he said.