The main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party on Thursday announced countrywide 48-hour hartal across Bangladesh from Saturday morning and urged the people to boycott the January 7 general election.

BNP senior joint secretary general Ruhul Kabir Rizvi, addressing a virtual press conference in the afternoon, said that the party will enforce the hartal between 6:00am on Saturday and 6:00am on Monday.

As a result, the hartal covers the election-day, a day before the election and six hours after the election.

Rizvi in the press briefing said that his party would hold mass contact and leaflet distribution among people across the country on Friday.

The BNP and its allies are now on simultaneous movement to press home their demand to dissolve the parliament, resignation of the government and handing over power to a party-neutral government to hold the next general election.

The opposition parties had earlier announced non-cooperation movement, boycotting the January 7 election and urged the country’s people not to go to polling centres to boycott the election.