Bangladesh Nationalist Parties and its allies in the ongoing movement on Thursday again enforced a 48-hour fresh road-rail-waterway blockade across the country starting from Sunday morning to protest at the schedule for the next national election announced by the Election Commission.

The party’s senior joint secretary General Ruhul Kabir Rizvi came up with the announcement at a virtual press briefing on Thursday afternoon.

It will be the ninth round of blockade programme of the opposition parties since October 31.

He said that the blockade would begin at 6:00am on Sunday and end at 6:00am on Tuesday.

Rizvi said that the blockade was also meant for mounting pressure on the government to quit, hold the next election under a non-party neutral government and release party leaders and activists, including its secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir.

He said that other opposition parties, who have long been carrying out the simultaneous movement with BNP, would also observe a similar programme.

The fresh programme was announced around three hours before the end of the opposition’s hartal which will end at 6:00pm on Thursday.

Rizvi thanked the country’s people and the opposition leaders and activists for making their hartal a success.

The opposition parties observed blockades in eight phases to mount pressure on the Awami League government to quit power and hold the next election under a non-partisan administration.

BNP and some other parties enforced a 24-hour road-rail-waterway blockade across the country starting from Wednesday morning and a daylong hartal on Thursday that will end at 6:00pm on Thursday.

They also observed a nationwide dawn-to-dusk hartal on October 29 in protest against the attacks on BNP’s grand rally at Nayapaltan that ended amid the incidents of torching vehicles and clashes, leaving three people dead.

Half an hour into the start of BNP’s much-talked-about grand rally at Nayapaltan on October 28, BNP leaders and workers locked in a clash with the ruling party activists and police at Kakrail. The violent clashes soon spread around Nayapaltan, foiling the rally midway.