Staff Correspondent

BNP secretary general Khandaker Delwar Hossain Wednesday wrote to the prisons authorities seeking permission to visit detained party chief Khaleda Zia, a BNP leader said.

The party's acting office secretary Rizvi Ahmed handed in the letter of the secretary general to the superintendent of the special jail, sited on the Jatiya Sangsad premises.

Rizvi later told reporters: "The secretary general wants to discuss with the chairperson a government proposal for talks." In December last year, Delwar went to meet the former prime minister in the special jail with a court order, but he was not allowed to get in.

Earlier in the day, Delwar told reporters that his party would not hold any formal or informal dialogue with the government if he was not allowed to meet the detained party chairperson. "I won't hold any dialogue with the government without talking to Khaleda Zia," he told reporters at his NAM home.

He also demanded the government hold elections prior to December, not in accordance with the roadmap. Denouncing the Election Commission he said: "The commission is cheating the people. The faction of the BNP it invited for dialogue was created by the government."

The commission was responsible for appointing acting chairman (M Saifur Rahman) and acting secretary general (Hafizuddin Ahmed) and invited them to dialogue, Delwar said. "The EC factory created [the opposing faction]."

In the reply to reporters' questions, he said: "I will take the final decision as the secretary general of the party. Nobody else has the right to do the job."

The Khaleda-appointed secretary general said he would announce the next moves after consultation with the leaders and activists of the party. Delwar asked the government to release the two detained former prime ministers to overcome the present crisis of the country.

He said the nation was currently encountering a "great disaster" for which he blamed the government, adding: "The government should declare the monga struck areas as disaster areas and offer emergency food relief there." He also demanded creation of a rationing system for people throughout the country.

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