Dhaka: BNP on Sunday alleged that Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina made an ‘untrue’ statement on January 5, 2014 general election to mislead people.

Speaking at a protest programme, party senior leader Khandaker Mosharraf Hossain, also said BNP will join the next polls realising its demand for installing an election-time non-party neutral government.

‘The Prime Minister plainly made an untrue remark at Ganobhaban yesterday (Saturday) that her government has been in power for the last four years as people had elected it with their votes. She (PM) did it to confuse people, and it’s very regrettable,’ the BNP leader said.

He further said, ‘We would like to say no one gave vote in 153 seats while only 5-10 percent people cast votes in the rest 147 seats. So, how did people elect you? You (PM) are claiming that you were elected by people while there was no election at all.’

Agriculturalist Association of Bangladesh organised the programme at the Jatiya Press Club, protesting the recent attack on its leader Jafir Tuhin by police.

The Prime Minister in her introductory speech in the Awami League Central Working Committee (ALCWC) meeting at the Gonobhaban on Saturday said, ‘In any form, the January 5 election was not a voter less at all...more than 40 per cent voters cast their votes.’

Mosharraf, a BNP standing committee member, said people are only getting aggrieved by such ‘untrue’ comments as they know how they lost their rights on January 5. ‘People of Bangladesh are now very conscious politically.’

He suggested Awami League leaders and activists to go to rural areas and talk to people to know how they have got fed up with the current regime.

About their party’s position on the 11th parliamentary polls, the BNP leader said it must be held under a non-party neutral administration dissolving the current parliament. ‘The next election won’t be held under Sheikh Hasina and Awami League-led government, no matter how much conspiracy they hatch’.

Mosharraf said the prices of essentials, including rice, have gone out of people’s buying capacity while corruption and plundering keep growing as the government has no accountability and control on state machinery.

He also said the government has pushed the country towards darkness with its misrule and destruction of all the institutions of the country.

The BNP leader urged people to get united to save the country by establishing a pro-people government through a credible and meaningful election.