Opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party on Thursday accused the Election Commission of ignoring the allegations of vote fraud in the on-going upazila elections.
“The Election Commission is consistently working only to keep the Prime Minister pleased. It is not serving the people and the democracy,” said BNP joint secretary general Ruhul Kabir Rizvi.
Addressing a press briefing at BNP’s Nayapaltan central office, he said if the commission had used its constitutional power the ruling party could not have grabbed polling centres and resorted to violence.
Rizvi said the ruling party ‘cadres’ captured many polling stations, attacked opposition party-backed contenders’ agents and their supporters in the most polling areas of the country during the second phase of the upazila polls.
The EC, he alleged, has rather allowed the ruling party men to rig the vote.
He said they thought the commission would try to regain its badly dented image in the upazila polls by performing a neutral role in the local body polls. “But they are implementing the autocratic decision of the executive branch only to protect their job and shamelessly stay in office forgetting their constitutional duty.
He was also critical of the law enforcers for what he said abetting the ruling party instead of challenging them.
Rizvi claimed that Awami League ‘cadres’ shot dead an opposition activist — Saddam Hossain– at Sonaimuri in Noakhali during the polls. “We strongly condemn and protest the incident.”
Asked whether their party will announce any action programme against the alleged vote fraud, Rizvi said the ruling party has established a reign of terror all over the country by resorting to terrorism and polling station grabbing. Our party’s policymakers will finalise action programme to protest it.”
The second phase elections to 115 upazilas of the country’s 52 districts were held on Thursday amid stray incidents of violence which left a Shibir activist Saddam dead in Sonaimuri upazila of Noakhali district and score others injured in various places.
The Voting began around at 8am and ended at 4pm without any break.
Earlier, on February 19, elections to 97 upazilas were held where the BNP-led 19-party-backed contenders won the elections in almost two-thirds upazilas.
Source: UNB Connect
