Big win for Khaleda Zia

By Our Special Correspondent

DHAKA, OCT. 2. The four-party alliance led by the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) chief, Begum Khaleda Zia, is heading for a landslide victory in the general elections, crushing the Sheikh Hasina-led Awami League's hopes of retaining control over the government.

`Unofficial results' of 196 of the 299 parliamentary seats released by the Election Commission till this evening show that the BNP-led rightist and radical Islamic alliance has bagged a total of 138 seats, of which the Jamaat-e-Islami bagged 12. The trend of the remaining results is also in the alliance's favour.

Contrary to all predictions of a close fight, the results showed the Awami League bagged only 40 seats, which the party chief, Sheikh Hasina, described as the ``outcome of a conspiracy and the implementation of a pre-designed blue print'' by the caretaker Government, the BNP and the Jamaat-led alliance.

The main faction of the Jatiya Party led by the former President, Gen. Mohammed Ershad, bagged 13 seats, while five went to Mr. Anwar Hossain Maju, the rebel Awami League leader, Mr. Kader Siddique, and independents.

At least 15 important Ministers of the Awami League Government were defeated. Sheikh Hasina herself lost two seats, but won three out of the five she contested. Begum Khaleda won in all the five seats. The Fair Election Monitoring Alliance (FEMA), a U.S.- funded NGO, has given a clean chit to the poll.

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