DHAKA: More than 100,000 supporters of two major opposition parties in Bangladesh rallied in the capital Dhaka on Saturday, police said, demanding Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to step down and allow a free and fair election under a neutral government.

Saturday's rallies by the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and the largest Islamist party, Jamaat-e-Islami, were the biggest so far this year, Agence France-Presse (AFP) journalists on site said, and marked a new phase in their protests with a general poll due within three months.