Indian High Commissioner to Bangladesh, Pranay Verma, held a meeting with senior leaders of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) today at the party chairperson's office in Gulshan.

The meeting commenced at 4:00pm, said Shairul Kabir Khan, a member of BNP's media cell.

BNP leaders present at the meeting included Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, Standing Committee member Salauddin Ahmed, Vice Chairman Nitai Roy Chowdhury, and Shama Obaid, a member of the party's foreign affairs advisory committee.

This is the first formal meeting between Indian officials and BNP leaders since the ouster of former prime minister Sheikh Hasina on August 5.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina today said BNP and its allies want restoration of the caretaker government system not for the election, but to push the country back to darkness again.

"No one will be able to push the country back to the era of darkness," she declared.

Hasina, president of the ruling Awami League, was addressing a discussion marking the 104th birth anniversary of Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman at its Dhaka district unit office in Tejgaon.

She said Bangladesh is the country of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib who was born to change the fate of the common people.

"And we will bring about that change following his ideals," she said.

The prime minister questioned the logic behind BNP's demand that the repealed caretaker government system is restored to oversee national elections.

"Why do they want that? What's their expectation? In 2008 election there was a caretaker government. In that election they got only 30 seats while Awami League bagged 233 seats," she recalled.

The prime minister said BNP should remember that.

She said while Awami League remains in power the poor get food and shelter.

In the country of Bangabanrhu, no one will remain without a home, address, and land, she said.

The government is implementing programmes to reach this goal, said the PM.

"And that is the thing they [BNP] cannot tolerate. They do not like that the common and poor people live a good life," she said.

The Daily Star has launched a new series of talk show ‘The Election Talks 2018’ where experts are analysing all aspects of the upcoming general elections, contemporary politics, events and incidents.

In today’s episode of ‘The Election Talks 2018’, Sharmeen Murshid, chief executive officer of a non-government organisation and local election observer group ‘Brotee’, talks with The Daily Star about the upcoming election.

She sheds light on the inclusion process of election observers for the 11th national polls on a one-to-one with Shakhawat Liton, planning editor of The Daily Star.

While listing the election observers this time, the election commission has excluded many experienced observes while many election observer groups were included who are not known to us, she said.

Mentioning that the scope of observing the election is getting reduced, she said, "This shrunken scope has raised questions in our minds."

As an example, she said that during the 2008 elections, number of total international election observers were 593 and local observers were 1,00,059 from 75 organisations. But this time there are only 25 to 26 thousand local observers and under 100 international observers, according to election commission data.   

Watch the video to know more!

BNP will form a judicial commission to reform the judiciary, the party promised in the election manifesto unveiled today. 

It will place the control of the lower judiciary on the Supreme Court instead of the president through amendment of the constitution.

It will put in place a institutional system to appoint efficient judges to remove the current case backlog, the party said in its manifesto.