Dhaka – Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has ruled out the possibility of a mid-term election in Bangladesh saying what situation arose to go for such election.

Hasina, while addressing a press conference in New York Thursday, also said that the national election will be held as per the schedule. The next Bangladesh parliament is scheduled for three months ahead of January 4, 2019 as the last election held on January 5, 2014.

Major political opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party boycotted the election and tried to foil it resorting to street agitation that left many people killed.

The party and its allies also tried to unseat the government of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on the first anniversary of the election and called for non-stop transport blockade for nearly three months. The party seemed to have weakened after the government controlled the street violence in an iron fist.

A section of television talk-show guests guess sometimes that there might be an early election in Bangladesh. But the prime minister dispelled the confusion.

“Has the news of mid-term polls come by floating in the river Jamuna … what problem has been created that the mid-term polls will have to be given?” she told a press conference.

The press conference was arranged at Bangladesh’s Permanent Mission to brief the media about the outcome of the participation of the prime minister in the 71st session of the United Nations General Assembly.

Hasina said there is no relation between the mid-term polls and the upcoming council of Bangladesh Awami League.

“You know that the Awami League is a big organization. The council of the party from grassroots to every ward, union, upazila and district has been completed. Now the central council (of the party) will be held and the councillors would take decisions about the leadership,” she said.

State-run Bangladesh Sangbad Sangstha news agency reported from New York that the prime minister said elections would always take place and she thinks that there is no relation of the party council with the elections.

“It’s our routine work and party council is held in every three years,” she said.

Hasina said the council of the party could not be held during the emergency and martial law regimes. “But other time, we tried to hold party council regularly and we’re taking that preparation,” she said.

Responding to a question about the opposition of BNP and some other parties about the government’s stance against militancy and terrorism, the Prime Minister said that opposition party which tends to oppose every step would oppose everything and there is nothing to be worried about it.

“The opposition party in parliament is properly performing their part, but you can’t expect anything especially from those who are not in parliament and don’t believe in democracy, who killed and burnt people to death to foil the last general election, burnt the polling centers and killed an Assistant Presiding Officer, torched buses, trains, launches and in trucks,” she added.

The BNP-Jamaat clique committed all such crimes to thwart the last election but failed to involve the common people in their attempt to foil the last general election.

“So, they burnt people to death, and you can’t expect anything good from those who believe in burning people to death,” she added.

The issues of countering terrorism and militancy came up in various functions of the 71st Session of the United Nations General Assembly adding that the terrorist acts are now taking place across the globe not only in Bangladesh.

In this connection, she said that some incidents of bombing and terrorist acts took place in the USA just before the current (UN) General Assembly.

Hasina said that all should have to resist those culprits who are killing people in the name of Islam and maligning this holy religion.

“Those who believe in killings are always become happy with seeing such killings………. It’s better not to talk about them,” she added.