The remarkable absence of polling agents of BNP-backed mayoral hopefuls in the capital and the party’s polls boycott in the midway through the polling have raised questions whether the party was serious about the election.
The party announced the polls boycott at 12:20pm, hours before the voting closed, claiming most of their polling agents were either forced out of the polling stations or barred from entering the centres in. Some agents were also detained by the law enforcers, it also said.
“All agents of BNP-backed mayoral candidates were force out from the all polling agents by noon. At this time we have no agent at any centre,” Moudud Ahmed, BNP standing committee member, said at an emergency press conference at the party’s Naya Paltan central office.
The Daily Star reporters last night and during the polls time talked at least 16 presiding officers of same number of polling stations in Dhaka South City Corporation and Dhaka North City Corporation on this issue.
Of them, three presiding officers said they got the lists of polling agents of Abbas.
“In my pooling station, polling agents of the BNP-backed candidate left the poll centre after lunch as their candidate announced to boycott it,” Mihir Ranjan Dey, presiding officer of Pilkhana poling station said last night.
AKM Sharif, another polling of Pilkhana Poling Station said polling agents of Mirza Abbas did not came as they did not submit the polling agent’s list.
Julfikar Ali, PO of Rajdhani Unnyan Kartripakkha poling station also echoed Sharif’s
On the contrary, Nuruzzaman, polling agent of Abbas told The Daily Star correspondent that the alleged Awami League men snatched his identity card while he was entering Govt Science Collegiate School at Purbo Tenturibazar at 7:45am.
“In face of their intimidation of attacking me, I left the poll centre.”
Only one polling agent of BNP backed DNCC mayoral for DNCC Tabith Awal was found in the three polling centres at the Government Science College in Mohammadpur.
But Amanur Rahman, who claimed to be the agent of Tabith Awal, was termed by the respective PO a fake one.
PO Golam Mostofa, warned Amanur against lying and at one stage Amanur admitted lying.
The Daily Star correspondent also came across a number of similar cases.
In Mohammadpur government primary school polling centre, it was seen that BNP men struggling to get permission from the PO for having an agent in each of the seven booths at the centre.
They finally managed to have five polling agents.
Hasan, polling agent of Tabith said he had to beg to the presiding officer from 7:00am to get the polling agents pass.
The presiding officer Abu Bakar Chowdhury said, “They (poling agents of Tabith) were too late to turn up for getting a polling agent passes.
They could have come last night or early hours today. We are now busy in making last moves to start voting,” Bakar said around 8:00am.
What Mohammad Liton, polling agent of Tabith at MDC Model Institute polling station said reflected the ill-preparedness and sloppy attitude regarding BNP-backed candidates participation in the city polls.
“I was asked to act as polling agent of this polling station in 6:00am of today [yesterday]. Despite my unpreparedness, I agreed to carry out the job. But this clearly indicates that the BNP high-ups did not assign proper men to look after the pre-voting formalities,” Liton added.
Asked, most of the polling agents of BNP-backed mayoral candidates did not come in the polling stations to carry out their jobs as AL men and police intimidated them, Liton said, the main question here is dedication for the party which is absence among many of BNP men.
The BNP backed aspirants’ sloppy attitude was reflected from the very beginning of BNP’s late decision to joint the electoral race as its heavyweight candidate for DNCC mayoral post Abdul Awal Mintoo made a silly mistake while submitting his nomination.
Source: The Daily Star
