Awami League presidium member and Agriculture Minister Abdur Razzak said that BNP leaders were offered to be released from prison to bring them to the polls. But BNP did not accept that proposal.
He said these things in an interview given to a private TV channel. A report based on the interview was published on the YouTube channel of the TV channel on Sunday (December 17).
In the report, Abdur Razzak said in response to the journalist's question, "If 20,000 (BNP leaders-activists) had not been arrested, would you have seen the car on the road today during the strike?" Apart from this, there was no alternative for us, no alternative. What we did, we did it thoughtfully.
It is to be noted that BNP is claiming that more than 20 thousand leaders and activists have been arrested around their mass gathering in Dhaka on October 28 and since then.
After the clash centered on the BNP's rally in Dhaka, the police launched an operation. BNP's grand rally was stunned by this. Many of the central leaders, including the party's secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, are now in jail. Many are in hiding, leaders and workers are away from home.
BNP leaders and workers are being sentenced in one case after another in the court. More than 1000 leaders and workers have been sentenced in at least 67 cases in four and a half months.
BNP and the parties in simultaneous movement and the Islamic movement are boycotting the elections.
Abdur Razzak mentioned that the government has tried to bring BNP to the elections. He said, "It has been repeatedly said from the Election Commission that if they come to the polls, the polls will be postponed. And not deferred, it was said they would be freed from jail.'