Staff reporter :
BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir on Thursday said their elected MPs will not take oath as they turned down the entire election results.
Besides, he said all the Jatiya Oikyafront candidates who contested the 11th parliamentary election with ‘Sheaf of Paddy’ symbol will file cases with the election tribunal in their respective seats with the allegations of vote fraud.
The BNP leader came up with the remarks while talking to reporters after a meeting of Oikyafront candidates at BNP chairperson’s Gulshan office.
Asked whether their elected MPs will take oath, Fakhrul said, “The oath-taking ceremony is already over. How would we take oath when we rejected the entire election results? I would like to clearly say we’re not taking oath.”
He said, the country’s people were ‘deceived cruelly’ through a ‘farce’ in the name of parliamentary elections on December 30.
Under the circumstances, the BNP leader said, “Our every candidate will file cases with election tribunals in their respective seats rejecting the election results and bringing allegations of vote fraud.”
Later, a 15-member delegation, led by Mirza Fakhrul, went to the Election Commission and submitted the memorandum demanding a fresh election under a non-party administration cancelling the December-30 election.
Mirza Fakhrul on Wednesday sent a letter to the EC informing it that all the Oikyafront candidates will simultaneously go to the Commission to submit a memorandum with documents of election irregularities at 3pm. In Sunday’s parliamentary elections, BNP bagged only five seats while its alliance partner Gano Forum two. At a meeting on Monday evening, Jatiya Oikyafront senior leaders turned down the election results and decided to submit a memorandum to the Election Commission demanding reelection.
Earlier in the day, a meeting of the Oikyafront candidates was held at the BNP chairperson’s Gulshan office.
BNP sources said 178 Oikyafront candidates, including BNP’s five MPs-elect, joined the meeting.
However, two elected MPs of Gano Forum were not present at the meeting.
The seven Oikyafront elected MPs are Mirza Fakhrul elected MP from Bogura-6, Mosharraf Hossain from Bogura-4, Jahidur Rahman from Thakurgaon-3, Aminul Islam from Chapainawabganj-2, Harun-or-Rashid from Chapainawabganj-3, Sultan Monsur from (Moulvibazar-2, Gano Forum) and Mokabbir Khan from Sylhet-2, Gano Forum).
