DHAKA — Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina held rare talks with the opposition on Thursday, days after its imprisoned leader was given a fresh sentence that will keep her behind bars for 10 years.

Hasina’s ruling Awami League party had earlier rejected any calls for talks with her opponents and ruled out accepting its demand for the dissolution of parliament before elections next month.

But in an abrupt about-face, the prime minister hosted members of the opposition coalition at her Dhaka residence late on Thursday to discuss the polls, according to the state-run BSS news agency.

Former foreign minister and Bangladeshi Nationalist Party (BNP) Kamal Hossain brought a group of 20 lawmakers to the meeting, according to Awami League deputy chief Obaidul Quader.

Hossain has brought several MPs together in an attempt to force Hasina to agree on the appointment of a caretaker government before the December vote.

Hasina’s chief rival, former premier Khaleda Zia, was on Tuesday handed a seven year prison term on graft charges, while another appeal court doubled her sentence for an earlier embezzlement conviction.

Zia and Hasina have been rivals since the 1980s, when both women allied to force the country’s former military dictator from power.

The duo alternated power for two decades until Zia boycotted national polls in 2014, sparking violence across the Muslim-majority democracy of 160 million.

Zia’s is the only inmate in an otherwise abandoned 19th-century jail and her health has deteriorated in custody. Her physician said she was suffering from diabetes and that arthritis had rendered her left hand useless.

Lawyers for Zia have accused the government of putting her health at risk by refusing her specialized care in prison. — AFP