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Dhaka: A call for national unity by the party of detained former Bangladesh prime minister Begum Khalida Zia was immediately rebuffed on Friday by its main rival in a sign the country's political cracks are as wide as ever.
Khandaker Delwar Hossain, secretary-general of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), appealed to the Awami League for unity ahead of elections scheduled for later this year.
Khalida is in detention awaiting a corruption trial,
"Please respond positively to our call for unity at least once, for God's sake and in the interest of the country," Hossain said late on Thursday.
But the offer was immediately rejected.
"We have already made our principled stance known to them (BNP) and the whole nation that unity with the BNP, even amid a crisis, is not possible," said Awami general secretary Syed Ashraful Islam.
Ideological differences
"Their policy and ideology are different from us. They make allies of fanatics and foes of the country. They help terrorists," he told reporters.
The Awami League, whose leader Shaikh Hasina is also in detention on graft charges, has criticised the BNP for an alliance with the Jamaat-e-Islami, the country's biggest religion-based party.
Awami and its allies accuse Jamaat of helping the Pakistani army in human rights violations during Bangladesh's 1971 war of independence against Pakistan, which Jamaat denies.
They also accuse the Jamaat of harbouring Islamist militants responsible for a series of bomb and grenade attacks in 2004-05 when Khalida was in power.
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