Staff Correspondent
Lawyers, academicians and human rights activists on Friday came down heavily upon the ruling party ministers and MPs for creating influence over the Thursday upazilla polls and demanded of the government to sack those ministers who were involved in acts of influencing election officials to work in favour of their party backed candidates.
At a discussion meeting on “People’s expectations to the Jatiya Sangsad” held at National Press Club yesterday, they alleged that the much-talked about third upazilla polls could not be held freely due to exercise of influence by ruling party leaders and activists.
Addressing the discussion, DU teacher Hafizur Rahman said that the people wanted to see reflections of their will in the upazilla elections but it did not happen due to intervention of ruling party ministers and MPs in some places.
He also said most MPs who have been elected in December 29 parliamentary polls do not have enough knowledge about laws. “In our country, most MPs do not know the pros and cons of laws, mainly the law commission prepares the laws and the main task of the MPs is to approve those laws,” he said.
Tushar Rehman, secretary general of Citizen Rights Movement, a civil society organization, said, ” The Prime Minister should sack minister Abdul Latif Biswas for tarnishing image of the government by involving himself in exercising influence over polls.”
Barrister Sadia Arman said the government should change its vision in line with the demand of time. “I am surprised to see such a bad practice of changing attorneys by all government soon after assuming office. Soon after holding office, the new attorney general forced most other deputy and assistant attorney generals to resign from their respective posts. I think such culture should be changed,” she said. She also alleged that election engineering took place in Thursday’s upazilla polls.
Speaking on the occasion, Dr Abdul Malek underscored the need for a comprehensive plan to bring prices of essentials under control. “The government should introduce a market monitoring policy to control market prices to ease the sufferings of commoners as per its poll pledge,” he said.
He also called upon government to take measures to make the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) and Election Commission (EC) more effective and functional.
Courtesy: thebangladeshtoday.com
