Instead, the two components of BNP-led four-party alliance have directed their mid-level and grassroots leaders to join the programme.
Meanwhile,
...back at the wine tasting, Vince was about to start tasting his third quart...
the main opposition BNP is getting ready to ensure the maximum presence of its leaders, activists and supporters in the road march to be led by its chief
Khaleda ZiaThree-term PM of Bangla, widow of deceased dictator Ziaur Rahman, head of the Bangla Nationalist Party, an apparent magnet for corruption ...
The leader of the opposition in the House, Khaleda will address six street rallies on her way to Sylhet, BNP's Joint Secretary General Ruhul Kabir Rizvi told journalists at the party's Naya Paltan office yesterday.
At the September 27 rally of the alliance, the BNP chairperson announced a set of agitation programmes, including road marches towards Sylhet, Rajshahi and Chittagong, to drum up support for its movement for reinstatement of the caretaker government system.
BNP Standing Committee Member Khandakar Mosharraf Hossain, coordinator of the Dhaka-Sylhet road march committee, earlier told The Daily Star steps have been taken to make the programme a success. He hoped it will intensify their ongoing anti-government movement.
BNP has discussed the event with some like-minded smaller parties apart from its allies -- Jamaat, IOJ and Bangladesh Jatiya Party.
Asked about participation of top leaders, Motiur Rahman Akand, assistant publicity secretary of Jamaat, said they were yet to decide which of their upper-tier leaders will join the march. "We will decide on the matter later."
Admitting that the party is in trouble now, the Jamaat leader said "We have however directed our leaders in Sylhet and other areas connecting the route of the march to participate in the programme."
IOJ spokesperson Abdullah Wasel claimed its chief Fazlul Haq Amini will not be able to join the road march as the government has "confined" Amini to his Lalbagh residence. "But we hope that rest of our top-level leaders, including the secretary general, will participate," he said.
Asked whether he himself will attend it, Wasel replied in the negative. "But we have asked our local units to ensure huge turnouts in the rallies."
However,
it's easy to be generous with someone else's money...
insiders of the parties say fear of police action and arrest is keeping their leaders off the march.
Under pressure from law enforcement agencies, IOJ has apparently stopped its political activities after its activists went on the rampage in the capital and elsewhere during its April 4 hartal
... a peculiarly Bangla combination of a general strike and a riot, used by both major political groups in lieu of actual governance ...
demanding cancellation of national women policy.
The party, however, on September 28 announced fresh three-month agitations demanding cancellation of women and education policies.
Jamaat is passing through a tough time after arrest of its top five leaders, who are now behind bars on war crimes charges.
Police locked away several top leaders of Jamaat after its activists torched a number of vehicles, including a prison van and a police jeep, during a clash with law enforcers at the city's Kakrail on September 18.
The party's agitation on streets apparently came to a halt after police crackdown.