"It's their old fashion. They always tried to get to power using the army," she said addressing a view-exchange meeting with the Awami League leaders from Laxmipur district at the Gono Bhaban.
Hasina said the history of BNP shows that they never believed in democratic means for transfer of power, UNB reports.
Blaming BNP for undermining the country's democratic system, she claimed that democracy was in trouble whenever the party was in power.
People now enjoy full freedom in exercising their voting rights, but if BNP comes to power again, they will have difficulty casting their votes freely, BSS said quoting the prime minister.
UNB adds: Hasina said that all parties at a meeting in 1986 had decided to participate in the election. But later at a rally, BNP chief
Khaleda ZiaThree-term PM of Bangla, widow of deceased dictator Ziaur Rahman, head of the Bangla Nationalist Party, an apparent magnet for corruption ...
had asked the army to come out of the cantonment and take part in a mass revolt.
"Soon after that, she [Khaleda] remained untraced for three days. She thought that the army would come out of cantonment and put her in the citadel of power. But that did not happen," she added.
When queried, Khaleda said she was incarcerated and confined for three days, said the prime minister.
Hasina mentioned that the opposition leader did the same during the BDR mutiny in 2009. "She went out from her house two hours before the BDR incident began in a black glass car defying all protocols provided to her as the leader of the opposition... it remains a mystery where she had been for the next three days."