Staff Reporter :
Claiming that vote frauds and huge irregularities took place during the first phase of Union Parishad polls, the BNP has said the ‘monstrous character of the government has been uncovered again’ through the elections.
BNP Joint Secretary General Ruhul Kabir Rizvi Ahmed said this in a press briefing at the party’s Nayapaltan central office in the city on Tuesday afternoon, just after the end of the first phase elections to 717 UPs in the country.The BNP leader alleged that the ruling Awami League grabbed and occupied almost all the polling centres. “Voting at almost all the 717 polling centres has been tampered with,” he said. Depicting scenarios of irregularities in different parts of the country, Rizvi Ahmed alleged that the Election Commission (EC) did not pay any heed to the allegations of BNP and its candidates.
Ruling party’s candidates and their supporters captured polling centres and stuffed ballots in many areas with the help of law enforcers and the local administration, he further alleged.
Meanwhile, BNP Acting Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir said the government has taken a ‘farcical election scheme under the current puppet EC’. “They have taken the scheme in a bid to fool the countrymen and the international community,” he commented.
He made the comments during the voting hours when he was talking to reporters after paying homage to BNP founder Ziaur Rahman’s grave at Sher-e-Bangla Nagar in the city. Leaders and activists of the Zia Parishad went there to mark 28th founding anniversary of the organisation.
Mirza Fakhrul claimed that the government has turned the election into a farce only to cling to power. “No elections will be free and fair under the Sheikh Hasina’s government,” he said.
He also claimed that that not only the BNP, different quarters are also terming this election as a ‘project’ and thus the government wants to make fool the people of the country and the global community through the UP polls.
He, however, said that the government wouldn’t be able to make the countrymen and the international community confused. Defending the move to join the polls, Mirza Fakhrul said that the BNP took part in the UP polls as part of its democratic movement despite knowing that the ruling party will indulge in vote frauds and irregularities.
“We are lodging our democratic protest through joining the polls. The elections are also exposing the government’s mask of democracy,” he said. Mentioning that over 100 ruling party chairman candidates have already been elected unchallenged, the BNP leader said, “Did you see any time earlier that the UP polls were held without any rival candidates?”
