BNP senior leader Khandaker Mosharraf Hossain on Monday said their party chairperson Khaleda Zia will be the prime minister if it comes to power through the next general election.

“Some Awami League leaders, including Obaidul Quader, have asked who will be BNP’s prime minister? We would like to clearly announce that Begum Khaleda Zia will be our prime minister,” he said speaking at a discussion.

The BNP leader also said everybody in Bangladesh knows that BNP will come to power in the future.

“We have a three-time Prime Minister, Begum Khaleda Zia, who will be the PM of the country.  But Obaidul Quader doesn’t see it,” he said.

Gonotantra Forum,  a pro-BNP platform, arranged the programme titled ‘The importance of neutral elections in resolving the ongoing crisis’ at the Jatiya Press Club.

Mosharraf, a BNP standing committee member, said Awami League President Sheikh Hasina in an interview with an international media said she was unwilling to be the prime minister again.

In this context, he asked Quader to say who will be Awami League’s prime minister if the party again comes to power in the next polls or after 10 years.

The BNP leader also said Awami League will suffer a defeat in the next polls as the party has already exhausted all its evil tactics. “No evil design will work in the country in the future.”

Reiterating their party’s stance on the next national election, he said BNP will not go to any polls under Sheikh Hasina.  “Not just us, but people all over Bangladesh and different political parties are saying that they wouldn’t go to polls under the current regime.”

Mosharraf said they will wage a strong poplar movement to oust the government if it does not step down and hand over power to a neutral government willingly.

He urged the government to take a lesson from Sri Lanka and dissolve the Parliament quitting power, paving the way for holding the election under a non-partisan and neutral government.

“If you do that, people may be kind to you. But we know they (govt) won’t listen to our advice. Good sense won’t prevail upon them even after seeing the situation in Sri Lanka,” the BNP leader observed.

He also warned that the government will have to take all the responsibilities if it deliberately pushes Bangladesh towards a Sri Lanka-like crisis by hanging on to power.