A fresh spell of countrywide blockade for 48 hours begins today amid the Election Commission’s final preparation to announce the schedule for the next general election, keeping most political parties, including the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party, on the streets.

Opposition parties and alliances, including Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami, Ganatantra Mancha, the Liberal Democratic Party, the 12-party alliance, Jatiyatabadi Samamana Jote, the Democratic Left Unity, and the AB Party, are holding street programmes demanding the resignation of the ruling Awami League by handing over state power to a party-neutral election-time administration.

Islami Andolon Bangladesh recently extended its support to the movements of opposition parties.

Political parties, including the ruling Awami League, did not agree on holding a dialogue on poll-time administration despite repeated local and international calls to do so.

Most of the main opposition BNP leaders are either in jail or on the run, with their central office under lock and key.

The fifth round of the blockade programme is beginning following a brutal attack by police and ruling party activists at the BNP’s grand rally in Dhaka on October 28.

Senior party leaders, including secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir and standing committee members Mirza Abbas and Amir Khasru Mahmud Chowdhury, are among those arrested.

BNP observed a general strike a day after the foiled rally before announcing a series of blockades protesting the police attack on its rally and pressing for the resignation of the government ahead of the election.

The blockades left the capital Dhaka almost cut off from the rest of the country, with a rare movement of vehicles on highways.

BNP and its partners vowed to announce tougher programmes if the Election Commission announced the poll schedule before resolving the ongoing political impasse.

Several leaders of the BNP and its allies told that if the EC announced the poll scheduled today or tomorrow, an ultimatum of two or three days  would be given to them to cancel it.

If the EC ignores the ultimatum and opinions of local and international communities, non-stop dawn-to-dusk hartal and blockade programmes will be announced, they said.

This programme will continue, excluding Friday and Saturday, for the convenience of people and goods transportation, they said.

On Friday and Saturday, the party has planned to continue demonstrations.

About the matter, BNP standing committee member Abdul Moyeen Khan said that if the government announced the poll schedule at this moment, it would once again prove that the Awami League government did not believe in democratic ideals. ‘Rather, it wants to rule the country by running a one-party steamroller.’

He said that the ruling party might think that it would pass the election hurdle by holding a one-sided drama like in the past, but that might not be the case.

‘It is not 2014 or 2018, it is 2024, and now the government can no longer fool anyone at home or abroad,’ he said.

Alleging that there is no environment for fair, free, impartial, and credible elections in the country, the Ganatantra Mancha has also urged the chief election commissioner not to announce the schedule.

Revolutionary Workers Party general secretary Saiful Haque told that Gantantra Mancha had already urged the CEC not to announce the schedule because there was no environment for a fair, free, impartial, and credible election in the country and there remained no democratic conditions.

‘According to the constitution, there is time to hold elections until the final week of January, so there is no problem even if the schedule is announced in the first week of December. The EC can tell the government from a moral point of view to sit with all parties, including BNP, and solve the crisis without announcing the schedule,’ he said.

A senior BNP leader told  that after the blockade and hartal programmes, they also planned to besiege important buildings, including the Election Commission.

He said that the leaders and activists who are hiding now might also come out and join the programme.

Referring to Article 26 of the constitution, the BNP leader said that as per the constitutional obligation, police and other administrations would be under the EC at that time, so if police arrested opposition people even after announcing the poll schedule, it would expose the EC’s failure to create a congenial atmosphere for election.

‘It shall be the duty of all executive authorities to assist the Election Commission in the discharge of its functions,’ the article stated.

The police authorities have feared a possible surge in violence and arson attacks over the announcement of the national election schedule.

The Dhaka Metropolitan Police on Tuesday instructed all of its members for an all-out effort to tackle a possible violence-centring national poll schedule announcement.

According to Fire Service headquarters, a total of 154 vehicles, including 82 in the capital, have been torched across the country since October 28.

At a virtual press conference on Tuesday, BNP senior joint secretary general Ruhul Kabir Rizvi asked the government to stop ‘schedule drama’ and resign immediately.

He urged party leaders and activists to become more active on the streets during the blockade programme.

He also alleged that the AL and intelligence people set fire to transports to shift the blame on the BNP.

He said that at least 420 BNP leaders and activists were arrested in countrywide raids by the police and Rapid Action Battalion on Monday, taking the number of opposition people arrested to 11,670 in the past three weeks, when 249 cases were also filed.

BNP chairperson Khaleda Zia’s special assistant, Shamsur Rahman Shimul Biswas, said that police had harassed and intimidated his family members at his Pabna house on Monday night.

He said that police harassed his 90-year-old mother and arrested his brother, Sahidur Rahman Biswas, without any reason.