20-party backs BNP protest programmes

BNP-led 20-party alliance has expressed its solidarity with the BNP's protest programmes announced demanding the release of party Chairperson Khaleda Zia from jail.

The combine leaders also said they would take part in the programmes.

“The 20-party alliance will also jointly plan programmes in future,” BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir told journalists after a meeting of the alliance partners at Khaleda Zia's Gulshan office.

The BNP leader said the alliance meeting condemned the verdict and demanded unconditional and immediate release of Khaleda, who has been jailed for five years in a corruption case.

When asked who was in charge of the alliance with Khaleda absent? Fakhrul said, “Begum Khaleda Zia is the leader of 20-party alliance. There is no doubt about it. I am working as a coordinator of the alliance.”

He said in the meeting, party's acting chairman Tarique Rahman talked to the combine leaders over phone and urged them to form a platform.

The BNP leader also said the meeting decided to speak to other political parties to expand the alliance.