The New Nation - Internet Edition

Staff Reporter

The Awami League will take part in the next general elections with party president Sheikh Hasina, as its leader.

Disclosing this yesterday, party Acting President Zillur Rahman said, "We will participate in the general elections under party chief Sheikh

Hasina after freeing her from jail."

He said this while talking to journalists at his Gulshan residence in the city.

Zillur termed the cases against Sheikh Hasina as "false and fabricated" and demanded withdrawal of those cases and her release immediately.

It may be mentioned here that the eventualities of the Awami League-led grand alliance poll boycott stalled the January 22 general elections and pushed the country to present crisis.

The boycott was followed by unprecedented political confrontations between the supporters of BNP-led four-party alliance and Awami League (AL)-led grand alliance in the capital and elsewhere in the country.

As many as 55 political activists were killed and hundreds of others injured throughout the country as confrontations between the rival political camps engulfed the whole nation.

Justifying the January 22 polls boycott, Zillur yesterday said, "The BNP-Jamaat alliance government had appointed President Dr Iajuddin Ahmed as Chief Adviser of the caretaker government under a blueprint to rig elections, which was opposed by the people."