Bangladesh’s main Opposition party, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), on Friday called for a fresh 48-hour shutdown to derail Sunday’s polls with its chief Khaleda Zia asking people to boycott the “farce” election, even as two people were killed in clashes and five makeshift voting centres torched.
“No one at home and abroad will recognise it as election and through this the Awami league Government will appear anew as an illegal structure,” Zia, also head of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party-led 18-party Opposition alliance, said in a statement.
Zia called upon countrymen to fully boycott the election, terming it a “stigmatised farce”.