Awami League (AL) General Secretary and Road Transport and Bridges Minister Obaidul Quader today said the ruling AL wants peaceful elections in the country, but BNP wants to disrupt the polls.

“BNP is known as a terrorist party… It is to see – to whom sanctions and visa policy would be applied,” he told a discussion on Dhaka University campus here.

Dhaka University unit of Bangladesh Chhatra League (BCL) organised the discussion on the occasion of Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s 48th martyrdom anniversary and the National Mourning Day.

Quader said BNP is the burning proof of what is called fascism as the BNP leaders follow fascism. On the other hand, he said, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has unchained the country’s democracy.

BNP has destroyed democracy, siphoned off money and started the politics of vote stealing by killing democracy, the AL general secretary said, adding that BNP is fascist pretending as a party of democracy.

“They (BNP) have been recognised as terrorists at the international level and our fight is against them,” he added.

About the “headache” of foreigners over Bangladesh’s elections, Quader said: “They intimidate and threaten us, and now they are applying visa policy…BNP is not facing such threats. But BNP is obstructing the elections. So, the visa policy will be applicable to them (BNP), not to us”.

He alleged that BNP is bringing its leaders and workers to Dhaka by paying Taka 2,000-5,000 each in its movement demanding the resignation of the AL government.

BNP secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir should go to Pakistan if he does not shun the demand of restoring the obsolete caretaker government, the AL general secretary said.

He instructed the AL leaders and workers to form committees in the units where there is no committee right now.

“The committees should be formed immediately. The organisation should be maintained as a creative one by identifying those who are intruders in the BCL,” he added.

Chaired by Dhaka University BCL president Mazharul Kabir Shayon, the discussion was addressed, among others, by BCL president Saddam Hussain, its general secretary Sheikh Wali Asif Enan and DU BCL general secretary Tanbir Hasan Shaikat.