BNP rejects polls, calls hartal for Sunday

Bangladesh Nationalist Party on Saturday evening called a dawn to dusk hartal in Dhaka city on Sunday rejecting the results of elections to two city corporations in Dhaka.

Jatiya Oikya Front extended its support to the hartal, said a press release issued by JOF office chief Jahangir Alam Mintu.

BNP secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir made the announcement at a press conference at the party’s Naya Paltan central office in Dhaka on Saturday evening when the polls result showed that the ruling Awami League mayoral candidates took lead in both constituencies.

The elections to the two city corporations were held from 8:00am to 4:00pm without any break amid low turnout and allegations of vote rigging, violence, AL men’s muscle flexing while they forced voters to vote for their candidates, besides complications the voters faced with the electronic voting machines.

The BNP secretary general urged Dhaka city dwellers to observe the hartal peacefully.

Earlier in the afternoon, at a press briefing at the party central office, the BNP secretary general alleged  that the Dhaka city elections were not free and fair due to AL activists occupying the polling centres.

He also mentioned that there were faulty electronic voting machines and widespread rigging while their polling agents were not allowed to enter or were ousted from the polling stations.

He also alleged that AL created panic by exploding bombs and forcing voters to vote for its candidates when each voter found a match for his or her fingerprint.

‘The election began with a serious violation of electoral code of conduct. The prime minister’s speech before going to vote at City College is tantamount to interference in the election. The prime minister, after casting her vote, urged to cast vote for “boat”, breaching the electoral code of conduct,’ he said.

BNP secretary alleged that the BNP polling agents were barred from entering the polling centres, and those who managed to enter, were ousted after torture while the presiding officers and law enforcement agencies remained silent.

He alleged that many could not their cast vote as their fingerprints did not match with the data preserved in the EC server and that the voters were forced to vote for AL, journalists were tortured and that the voter turnout was low for lack of security as the miscreants as political showdown in localities assumed the form of muscle flexing.

The BNP leader said that those dawning boat badges were outsiders and neither the law enforcers nor the election commission took any measures to get rid of them.

He specifically described how their polling agents were intimidated, ousted from and tortured at different polling centres of 32 wards in Dhaka north city and 27 wards in Dhaka south city.

Earlier, a BNP delegation led by the party’s standing committee member Amir Khasru Mahmud Chowdhury submitted a written complaint to the Election Commission over irregularities in the elections.

News Courtesy: www.newagebd.net