Dhaka (dpa) – Bangladesh's main opposition party has withdrawn its call for a general strike Thursday because Hindus are having a religious festival that day, a senior party leader said. The party will now stage countrywide demonstrations instead on that day, which Hindus celebrate with bathing rituals for the Ratha Saptami festival, Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, general secretary of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), said Monday. BNP chief and former prime minister Khaleda Zia this month had called for the dawn-to-dusk stoppage to back restoration of a constitutional provision that provides for a non-party caretaker administration to oversee national elections set for 2014. The Awami League-led coalition government of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wazed scrapped the provision, under which Bangladesh held three national elections. The opposition threatened to boycott polls without a non-party system. BM ShortURL: http://goo.gl/StlYc Tags: Bangladesh, Opposition, Strike Section: Latest News, South Asia
