<div><span style="font-size: 1rem;"><b>The BNP on Thursday announced a 48-hour hartal across the country starting from Sunday to protest the schedule for the next national election announced by the Election Commission (EC).</b></span><br></div><div><br></div><div>Party Senior Joint Secretary General Ruhul Kabir Rizvi came up with the announcement at a virtual press briefing on Wednesday evening.</div><div><br></div><div>He said the shutdown will begin at 6am on Sunday and end at 6pm Tuesday.</div><div><br></div><div>Rizvi said they will enforce the hartal also to mount pressure on the government to step down and hand over power to a neutral government and release all the arrested BNP leaders and workers, including its secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir.</div><div><br></div><div>Some other opposition parties, including Gono Odhikar Parishad and Labour Party also announced to enforce a 48-hour hartal during the same period.</div><div><br></div><div>Meanwhile, Left Democratic Alliance (LDA) enforced a half-day hartal from 6 am to 2 pm and Ganatantra Mancha enforced dawn-to-dusk hartal from 6am to 6pm on Thursday protesting the polls schedule.</div><div><br></div><div>Earlier, the party and like-minded parties enforced a 48-hour countrywide road-rail-waterway blockade from 6am Wednesday to mount pressure on the Awami League government to quit power and hold the next election under a non-partisan administration. It was the fifth phase of the blockade programme of the opposition parties.</div><div><br></div><div>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.</div><div><br></div><div>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. Soon violent clashes spread around Nayapaltan, foiling the rally midway. Accoridng to UNB reports&nbsp;</div><div><br></div><div>bnbd24/fas</div>