Not Dilli, not Pindi. B'desh First, says BNP

ANGLADESH Nationalist Party (BNP) leader Tarique Rehaman, son of former prime minister Khaleda Zia and the late President General Zia Ur Rehman, on Wednesday gave his sea of supporters in Dhaka a slogan to remember and use in elections he insisted the interim government must hold in December. "Not Dilli, not Pindi, nor any other country. Bangladesh first," Rehman thundered, to a roar of approval from lakhs of people who turned the street outside the BNP's head office at Naya Paltan in Dhaka into a carpet of yellow BNP pennants and green and red Bangladesh flags.

- Monideepa Banerjie Senior journalist

The Delhi dig was directed at the Awami League, which BNP has consistently claimed is in India's pocket. The reference to Pindi is a first and directed at the growing warmth between the Muhammed Yunus government in Dhaka and the Pakistan military headquartered in Rawalpindi. Within weeks of being installed, the Yunus government had opened its ports to ships from Pakistan and extended several other facilities to a country that was shunned during