Welcoming the Election Commission’s decision to deploy army during the city corporation polls in Dhaka and Chittagong, BNP standing committee member Moudud Ahmed on Tuesday demanded that the army be given magistracy power to fulfill the goal of arranging free and fare elections.”We welcome the decision to deploy army but the goal of the army deployment won’t be achieved if the magistracy power is not given (to army),” he said while talking to reporters after a three-member delegation of BNP that met the Chief Election Commissioner at the Election Commission. Leading the team, Moudud along with BNP standing committee member Jamiruddin Sircar and BNP chairperson’s adviser entered the CEC’s office at around 4:40pm and discussed issues relating to the city corporation polls for about an hour.Talking to reporters about the meeting, Moudud said they expressed their concern about the attack on Khaleda’s motorcade during her campaign for BNP-backed mayor candidate for Dhaka North City Corporation (DNCC).”We told the CEC that whatever the election environment had been there in recent times has greatly been hampered due to this (attack on Khaleda’s motorcade). We’ve asked the CEC to take steps to ensure that such incidents don’t take place anymore,” he added.The BNP leader said, he has asked the CEC to instruct the inspector general of police (IGP) to ensure that BNP candidates – whether or not they are accused in cases – do not face intimidation at least for the next seven days.He also noted that BNP expressed its concern over the appointment of presiding officers and other polling officers, claiming that most of the polling officers have been appointed on political consideration.BNP also recommended that the Election Commission take the opinions of all the candidates to identify the risky polling centres in the cities.
