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A general strike called by opposition parties over election procedures disrupted transport and businesses across Bangladesh on Sunday, but security forces were widely deployed and no major violence was reported.

Most businesses in the capital were shuttered at the beginning of the 36-hour stoppage and public transport was virtually at a standstill, though trains continued to run.

Armed police and members of the elite Rapid Action Battalion fanned out in Dhaka and in the port city of Chittagong, guarding key government buildings.

The opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) of former prime minister Begum Khaleda Zia said police broke up attempts to stage demonstrations and many of its leaders were rounded up and detained.

"It seems like we are in a forbidden city," BNP secretary-general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir told party workers.

Politics in impoverished Bangladesh has been dominated for decades by often violent rivalry between Khaleda Zia and current Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.

Sheikh Hasina took office in early 2009 and general elections are due in 2013 as the government grapples with discontent over high prices, high unemployment and inadequate public services.

The BNP called Sunday's strike, the second in a week, to denounce a government proposal to rescind constitutional provisions under which government is temporarily handed to a non-party administration before an election.

Under the system, in place since 1996, the ruling party hands power to a non-party caretaker authority to hold an election within three months. Power is then handed back to the newly-elected government.

But in 2007, an army-backed interim government held on to power for two years before holding an election.

Sheikh Hasina has called for the abolition of the system since the Supreme Court declared it unconstitutional last month.

But the court also said the system could remain in place for two more elections to avoid the political turmoil and violence associated with campaigns that prompted its introduction in the first place.

The BNP and allies want the caretaker system to stay unchanged to guard against what it says would be an attempt by the prime minister's Awami League party to steal the election.

The Awami League dismisses the opposition charges.

- Reuters