EC roadmap a blueprint to put AL to power again, says BNP [ Tritiyo Matra News ]

EC roadmap a blueprint to put AL to power again, says BNP

Local July 19, 2017

Bangladesh Nationalist Party on Tuesday said that the roadmap unveiled by the Election Commission was meant to implement a blueprint for bringing the ruling Awami League to power again.
The party smelt a rat behind the unveiling of the EC roadmap before its much-talked-about demand for an election-conducive government was settled.
It also saw conspiracy in the remark of the chief election commissioner that the commission would take steps to ensure a level-playing field after the election schedule was announced.
Senior BNP leaders made the remarks while expressing the party’s formal reaction to the commission’s Action Plan for the 11th Parliament Election, announced by chief election commissioner KM Nurul Huda on Sunday.
BNP secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, flanked by the party’s senior leaders at a news conference at the party’s central Nayapaltan office in Dhaka, said, ‘The BNP thinks that by showing disregard to people’s expectations before unveiling the roadmap, the Election Commission has begun its journey to implement the blueprint for putting Awami League to power again.’
‘The nation is extremely frustrated and aggrieved,’ he said.
Fakhul said that the people had expected that the commission would take effective steps to implement the demand for an election-conducive government that would ensure participation of all the political parties in the election.
‘To that end, the commission should talk to all the political parties for holding a fair and credible election. But it has shattered that hope of the nation,’ he remarked.
Fakhrul said that the people were frustrated hearing the CEC say that a neutral election was possible under the incumbent government echoing the statements made by the prime minister, ministers and ruling party leaders.
‘But the reality is totally different,’ he said.
The BNP secretary general said, ‘The incumbent government is not an elected government. A fair and neutral election is not possible under this government.’
‘The ruling party in a planned way is moving towards holding a unilateral election using its subservient Election Commission to come to power again,’ he said.
Fakhrul urged the government to hold dialogues with political parties to find a way out of the present impasse about the road ahead for a credible election.
About joining EC’s dialogue, he said that it would be decided when the dialogues began.
BNP standing committee member Khandoker Mosharraf Hossain said that they smell a conspiracy in the commission’s advancement with the roadmap before finding a common ground over the poll-time election-conducive government.
Blasting the CEC for his statement on the level-playing field, Mosharraf claimed that the election process had started following the announcement of election ‘roadmap’. ‘The commission should ensure equal scopes for all the parties,’ he said.
When asked about AL leader Tofail Ahmed’s remark that no negotiation would take place outside the constitution, BNP’s standing committee member Moudud Ahmed said that the issue was political, not constitutional.
‘The constitution is for the people, but the people are not for constitution,’ he said.
He believed that the entire matter was a political crisis and so it had to be solved politically.
BNP standing committee members Mirza Abbas and Goyeshwar Chandra Roy, senior joint secretary general Ruhul Kabir Rizvi, among others, were present at the conference.