Hartal on 29th March, declares Khaleda Zia

BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia called a nationawide general strike on 29th March. She also said that the government severed Dhaka from the rest of the country being afraid of the mass rally.
But the government failed to prevent people from forming the mass gathering, she said while addressing the grand rally in front of BNP’s central office in the city.

“Whenever we plan programmes, you (government) prevent us again and again,” she said, questing why the government is so fearful, Bangla daily Prothom Alo reports.
She started her address around 4:45pm before the crowd of opposition leaders and activists from a dais installed near BNP headquarters at Nayapaltan.
The rally has been organised to press home the demand for restoration of the caretaker government.
Amidst applause from thousands of opposition activists, Khaleda reached the dais set up near BNP’s office at Nayapaltan at 2:35pm.
The rally began around 1:30pm through recitation from Quran.
Earlier, senior leaders of the alliance and like-minded parties delivered their speeches. They criticised various activities of the government.
The opposition leaders accused the government and ruling party of barring their supporters from joining the much-hyped mass rally.
Sadeque Hossain Khoka, BNP convenor of Dhaka city, is presiding over the meeting.

In her speech, Khaleda is expected to announce the expansion of the BNP-led political alliance.
The total number of the parties in the alliance will be 16 or more, BNP sources have claimed.
Currently, the four-party alliance comprises the BNP, Jamaat-e-Islami, Islami Oikya Jote (IOJ), Bangladesh Jatiya Party (BJP) and Khelafat Majlish.
The new parties likely to join the alliance are the Liberal Democratic Party, Kalyan Party, JAGPA, National People’s Party, National Awami Party, Labour Party, Islamic Party, National Democratic Party and Muslim League.
Representatives of a few other parties, including Bikalpa Dhara Bangladesh, may express their solidarity with the rally.
Hours before the rally was scheduled to start, a few thousand people filled up the area from Nayapaltan to Kakrail and the overspill later spread to adjoining areas.
Our correspondents reported that the huge crowd spilled over from Arambagh to Hare Road touching Motijheel.
Leaders and workers of the four-party alliance and their like-minded parties marched towards venue with banners and placards containing the CG restoration demand. The workers started to throng the venue since 10:00am.
On January 9, BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia from a Chittagong rally announced a mass rally for March 12 to mount pressure on the government to restore the caretaker government system for the next parliamentary election.
But the government “vowed to resist any bid by the BNP to create anarchy” in the name of rally and cut off the city from rest of the country so that people cannot join the opposition programme.