Law Minister Anisul Huq today said the Supreme Court and the Election Commission (EC) will decide whether BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia can contest the next general election.

The government has nothing to do in this regard, the minister said.

The government is not so easily scared that it will have to contest the national election by keeping anybody out of the race, the minister further added.

If anybody has to stay out of the elections because of any legal procedure, the government has nothing to do here, he said. The minister was talking to reporters after attending as the chief guest at the inaugural ceremony of a training programme for the lower court judges at the Judicial Administration Training Institute in Dhaka.

The government is not afraid of any threat and the law will take its own course, Huq said.

Replying to a question on Khaleda’s fate over contesting the next parliamentary election, he said that there are two judgements of the Supreme Court regarding this issue.

The SC in one judgement said that if anybody is convicted and sentenced by the lower court he or she can contest the election until the appeal is not settled by the apex court.

In another judgement, the apex court said that a convict cannot contest the election.