Bangladesh opposition says government aims to hold polls by December

DHAKA (Reuters) - Bangladesh is working towards holding general elections by December, the party of former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia said after some of its officials held a meeting with Muhammad Yunus, the chief adviser to the interim government.

The South Asian nation has been in charge of a caretaker government led by Nobel Peace laureate Yunus since August, when mass protests forced then Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to resign and flee to neighbouring India.

Khaleda's Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and rival Hasina's Awami League have governed Bangladesh for most of the past three decades.

The BNP expects Yunus to soon announce a roadmap for general elections, its secretary general, Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, told reporters.

"We have once again pressed them on this matter," he said on Monday. "He (Yunus) told us that they are working to hold the election by December."

There was no comment on the meeting from the interim administration.

It is the most specific date since prior suggestions by Yunus of possible timeframes for the end of 2025 or the middle of 2026. The BNP was among parties pushing for early elections, which it had urged to be held by August.

Last week, thousands of protesters set fire to the residence of Bangladesh's founding leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman after Hasina, his daughter, called on supporters to stand against the interim government.

At the time Yunus' press office said the protesters' attack on Rahman's residence was unintended and unwanted, coming as a response to Hasina's "violent" behaviour.

"The government cannot evade responsibility for these incidents," Alamgir said after the BNP delegation met Yunus on Monday. "Those incidents happened in front of law enforcement and other government agencies."

During the meeting, the interim government said it was taking steps necessary to rein in prices, after the BNP raised the issue of high inflation, Alamgir added.

Inflation stood at 9.94% in January, government data show. In a monetary policy report on Monday, the central bank said it expected inflation to decline in the coming months.

(Reporting by Sudipto Ganguly in Mumbai; Editing by YP Rajesh and Clarence Fernandez)