Staff Reporter :
Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) KM Nurul Huda has said that only opposition candidates can explain the reasons of the absence of their polling agents in the centres.
“What can we do if the agents of ‘Sheaf of Paddy’ (BNP’s electoral symbol) do not come?” The CEC told the journalists’ when they wanted to know as to why there was no agent of Bangladesh Nationalist Party at the IES School and College polling centre of Uttara Sector-5 in Dhaka, where he went to cast his vote in general election 2018.
No one complained about any obstacle in front of the voting centres, he said. When the journalists asked him if he had seen any BNP polling agent there, he said that he did not notice that. Barring few exceptions, the situation was normal all over the country, the CEC claimed. The returning officers, police and the law enforcement members were given directives to carry out their respective duties, he said.
All the centres couldn’t be controlled from Dhaka, but voting will be postponed if the situation was out of control, Nurul Huda said.
Voting was suspended there where irregularities took place. If the situation improves, voting would be retaken in these centres later, he further said.
About the allegations that the voters at some centres were being forced to vote for Boat, the CEC said he had not heard anything like that.
When asked if this election could remove the previous election stigma, he said, “Let the election process be finished first.”
