The Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) on Sunday raised questions about the impartiality of the Election Commission (EC) and demanded deployment of the army in the Barisal City Corporation (BCC ) election. The BNP’s central vice-chairman Abdullal Al Noman and the BNP’s Barisal city unit president Mojibor Rahman Sarwar levelled these allegations during a programme held for exchanging views with journalists at Barisal Ashwini Kumar Hall. The meeting was presided over by Sarwar.
Noman, demanding deployment of armed forces in the BCC election, said the administration, police and EC have failed to perform their duty impartially. They have not created and maintained a level playing field for all candidates, he added.
Noman alleged that the EC has selected most of the presiding and polling officials from the activists of the rival 14-party Grand Alliance and was trying to conduct an election based on vote-rigging and was planning to give out prearranged false and fabricated results in accordance with the directions of the ruling 14-party alliance. “The EC has ignored our demands for changing the setups of the police administration as well as our allegations against violations of the rules of election conduct by candidates backed by the ruling alliance. They are only harassing our activists and supporters,” he said.
Mujibur Rahman, returning officer of the third BCC election, 2013, however, refuted all allegations. Unlike the national elections, he explained, the administration and police are not under the EC during local government polls. All allegations filed with the EC are duly sent to the mobile court teams, he noted.
The EC has made full preparations for conducting a free, fair election peacefully with the help of more than 4,000 members of the Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB), Coast Guard, Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), Armed Police Battalion (APBn), police, Ansar and other law-enforcement agencies. He pointed out that deployment of the army requires a decision by the higher authorities.
Mojibor Rahman Sarwar, who is the first elected BCC mayor, is also a lawmaker and chief election coordinator of the mayoral candidate backed by the 18-Party Alliance. He alleged in the press conference that the 14-party alliance has hijacked the credit for the developmental works that were achieved and misappropriated grants approved during the tenure of the BNP-led government.
Sarwar also alleged that the major developmental works were started and completed by him, or their funds were approved by him, but the credit has been appropriated and propaganda has been spread that the mayoral candidate backed by the 14-party alliance, outgoing mayor Shawkat Hossain Hiron, was responsible.
The BNP-led alliance government, he said, has carried out developmental works worth more than Tk. 1,250 crore, including formation of Barisal division, metropolitan city and police, and university; activation of the airport, divisional stadium, divisional public library, a double-decker bus service; establishment of central bus terminals, the court complex, women police dormitory and diabetic and heart foundation hospitals, and preservation of liberation war memorials.
The outgoing mayor has performed an eyewash, with superficial development and beautification as well as repairs for the purpose of misappropriating huge amounts of funds, Sarwar alleged. He added that his rival had failed to construct even a single new bridge on the city’s canals, but had filled canals and constructed culverts after demolishing bridges, hampering the city’s drainage and sewerage system. Sarwar provided instances and documents.
Sarwar also claimed that leaders and activists backed by the ruling alliance had misappropriated 75 per cent of the money that had been showed as spent for the city’s development by carrying out substandard work, grabbed the lands of minority Christian and Hindu communities, and filled rivers to grab land and establish dockyards as well as set up other kinds of businesses.
Candidates for the posts of mayor and councillors, backed by the ruling 14-party alliance, not only used black money in election publicity by erecting hundreds of coloured billboards and to purchase votes, but also used muscle power, forcibly deploying BCC and project employees in election propaganda, Sarwar alleged.
-With The Independent input
