BNP demands three more seats of Speaker............

BNP has demanded three more front row seats before they rejoin parliament, speaker Abdul Hamid told us on Thursday.

A BNP parliamentary delegation, led by senior opposition leader MK Anwar, met with Hamid in the morning.

The speaker said he had already conveyed the BNP lawmakers' demands to Awami League's chief whip Abdus Shahid to inform the treasury bench.

Shahid said he would inform his party leadership of BNP's "proposal".

Hamid told us at his office: "The BNP demands three more seats in the front row as a condition to return to parliament session."

"But they did not threaten any permanent boycott of parliament," he said.

"I have told them that I will take consent of the ruling party and allocate seats if AL sacrifice them. Otherwise, I can do nothing."

Shahid told bdnews24.com: "We are still holding our position. Now, it is upto the speaker to decide."

The BNP leaders did not disclose any details of their meeting with Hamid, but MK Anwar told us: "BNP MPs will sit again at 4.00pm to discuss the issue further."

BNP staged a walkout as parliament resumed on Wednesday, protesting a new seating layout by speaker Hamid that reduced the main opposition party just four front row seats from the nine allocated by outgoing speaker Muhammad Jamiruddin Sircar.

The ruling party Awami League has opposed Sircar's arrangement, saying it was disproportionate to the total number of seats won by the opposition.

AL chief whip Shahid maintains "they should get three out of the total 29 seats on the front benches."

"They have only a tenth, or 30 out of the total 300, seats in the House."

Shortly after their walkout on Wednesday, MK Anwar had told reporters: "The government has reordered the seats as they cannot bear the opposition party being there."

"This is against the usual practice of parliament."

"We will be back in parliament only after holding talks," Anwar had said.

But, the MP stressed, they would not return to the House "before resolving the issue".