The detained Bangladesh Nationalist Party chairperson Khaleda Zia has said the incumbents, though they do not have any constitutional mandate to conduct local polls, are out to do so, and that too under emergency, only to install people of their choice in public offices. In this regard, Khaleda categorically said that there could be no elections, national or local, under the state of emergency. She, however, did not clearly say whether her party would resist the local body elections scheduled for August 4.
She said her party was not against local body polls, but those must be held under an elected democratic government since the caretaker government was not mandated to hold local government polls.
Khaleda, the former prime minister, made the statements Tuesday while talking to her lawyers in a special court in the Jatiya Sangsad premises after the proceedings in the GATCO