Staff Reporter :Belief it or not! When living persons could not go to vote centres in fear of life, the dead cast their votes… Apparently, it was the observation of some civil society members about the recently concluded Union Parishad elections across the country.The observations came up at a press conference titled — UP election 2016: an evaluation — arranged by Shushasoner Jonno Nagarik [SUJAN] held at the Dhaka Reporters Unity on Thursday.”It was the worst ever election in the history of 150 years. Ayub Khan had introduced UP elections as fundamental one. But I’ll say that the recently held UP polls was a ghost election, because most of the voters failed to go to the vote centres in fear of life. And in many areas, the dead were shown casting their votes,” eminent columnist Syed Abul Maksud said.”We don’t see any similarity between the local body elections of Bangladesh and other foreign countries. Ultimately, the ruling party is the gainer in the polls. The electoral system has been collapsed,” he said.The UP elections – to elect leaders for the lowest tier administration of local government – conducted in over 4500 unions across the country from March 22 to June 6 claimed more than 110 lives and 5000 others injured in a conservative estimation.SUJAN, however, claimed that the number of deaths was 145 and injured 11,500. It also blamed the government for destructing the entire electoral system and demanded to arrange a ‘national dialogue’ to get a solution over the issue. Former Adviser to the caretaker government M Hafizuddin Khan, also president of SUJAN said: “The system of open violence and irregularities has been introduced in the immediate past UP elections. It will be very tough to bring the situation under control in the future.”SUJAN also claimed that a large number of minority people came under attack in different parts of the country during the six phases of UP elections. And the local leaders and activists of Awami League were directly involved in these incidents. “The people of minority communities were attacked in several areas, including Barisal, Patuakhali, Barguna, Pirojpur, Khulna and Bagherhat during pre-polls and post-polls violence,” Dilip Kumar Sarkar, coordinator of SUJAN, said in a press statement. “Each and every incident was occurred during clashes with ruling-party backed candidates and party’s rival contenders. In some areas, the minority people were threatened before voting,” added the press statement.
