JANUARY 5 RALLY : AL, BNP opt for alternative venues

Both the ruling Awami League and opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party opted for alternative venues for holding their rallies in the capital on Tuesday if they were denied permission to hold the rally at Suhrawardy Udyan.
Tension rises in the political arena with the two archrival parties’ announcement made on Saturday that they would hold rally at Suhrawardy Udyan on Tuesday marking the second anniversary of the January 5, 2014 elections, boycotted by all opposition parties.
AL on Sunday said that the party would hold its rally at Bangabandhu Avenue while BNP said that it would hold the rally in front its central office at Naya Paltan they were denied permission to use Suhrawardy Udyan on Tuesday.
Both the parties on Saturday applied to Dhaka Metropolitan Police seeking the permission.
The metropolitan police was yet to respond to any of the parties.
Home minister Asaduzzaman Khan told reporters after a programme at Mirpur on Sunday that after the assessment of the security arrangement, the police would decide whether BNP would be allowed to hold the rally at Suhrawardy Udyan.
BNP joint secretary general Ruhul Kabir Rizvi at a press conference at party’s central office Sunday afternoon said that they had already submitted fresh letter to the police seeking permission to hold rally at Naya Paltan.
‘If we do not get the permission to hold the rally at the alternative venue, we would announce our next programme,’ Rizvi said.
Awami League joint general secretary Mahbubul Alam Hanif after a meeting at the party chief’s Dhanmondi office on Sunday afternoon said that they were considering Bangabandhu Avenue as the alternative venue for their rally if they were denied permission to hold the rally at Suhrawardy Udyan.
He said that they would also hold rally at 17 other venues in the city to celebrate the ‘victory day for democracy’ on January 5.
Meeting sources said that the central leaders at the meeting asked the leaders of Dhaka city Awami League leaders and the associate bodies to mobilise maximum number of party activists and supporters to the streets on Tuesday so that the BNP activists could get no space for gathering.

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