The ruling Awami League presidium member and agriculture minister Mohammad Abdur Razzaque has said that BNP leaders were offered release from jail overnight if their party took part in the polls.
However, the party did not accept the proposal, said the AL leader.
He, while giving an interview on a private television channel, Channel 24, said that a lot of things were tried to bring the BNP to general election.
The interview, telecasted on Sunday, is also available on the private TV’s YouTube channel.
The minister said that the BNP leaders were kept in jail as part of the plan to keep the country stable.
‘Vehicles are now plying on roads during hartal,’ the minister said and questioned whether the vehicles could ply on roads if 20,000 people were not kept in jail.
He said that they had no other way without following the path.
‘The Election Commission has repeatedly urged them to come to the polls. They did not agree to the offer of consensus if they came to the election. There is no lack of efforts from Awami League to make the election acceptable.’
The BNP is alleging that the ruling Awami League government had arrested over 20,000 leaders and activists, including senior leaders, of the opposition party in false and fictitious cases across Bangladesh.
Many of the party's central leaders, including Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, are now behind bars.
The BNP and its allies are now on movement for cancellation of the next general election schedule, resignation of AL government, dissolving the parliament and handing over power to a neutral election-time government for holding the next general election.
The BNP has been alleging that no neutral election could be held under the AL government and that the AL in 2018 election secured victory by stuffing ballots at the night before the election day.
