The chief election commissioner, ATM Shamsul Huda, on Tuesday said that main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party would get no further chance to sit with the commission if the party failed to attend the dialogue scheduled for today.
The dialogue between the ruling Awami League and the Election Commission was not held on Tuesday as the ruling party expressed its inability because of the weekly cabinet meeting. The commission decided to sit with the Awami League in the first week of August as the party sought fresh date for the dialogue.
As for BNP, Shamsul on Tuesday said, ‘The main opposition BNP will be given no further chance to sit with the commission if they do not attend the dialogue scheduled for Wednesday.
‘We have no more time. We have to prepare the summary of the series of dialogue and submit it to the government,’ he added.
On June 13, the BNP did not participate in the dialogue with the commission, which later invited the party again to the talks on any day between June 19 and June 21.
The BNP in a letter rejected the Election Commission’s invitation to the dialogue, branding the commission as ‘controversial’ and accusing it of indulging itself in ‘biased and motivated’ acts.
‘The present commission has lost the people’s trust for its weak and partisan attitudes. A discussion with such a commission on electoral matters will be of no benefit because it will not ensure the holding of fair elections,’ said the letter signed by the BNP’s acting secretary general, Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir.
The BNP-led alliance partner Jamaat-e-Islami and two other parties, Bangladesh Jatiya Party and Jamiyat-e-Ulama-e-Islam, also skipped the dialogue.
An Awami League delegation, meanwhile, handed over a letter requesting the commission to set a new date for talks, part of a series of dialogues with the registered political parties on electoral reforms.
The party’s office secretary Abdul Mannan, also the state minister for public works, and his deputy in the party Mrinal Kanti Das reached the letter to the commission in the morning.
Explaining the matter, Mannan said, ‘Meetings with the commission and of the cabinet are both important. Monday’s cabinet meeting was deferred to Tuesday as the day was a public holiday on the account of Shab-e-Barat.’
He also said that many of the cabinet members were scheduled to join the dialogue.
The dialogue was first slated for June 9. But the date was shifted to June 18 as the Awami League could not attend dialogue because of the placement of the national budget in the parliament. The dialogue was later rescheduled for July 19.
He said that the dialogue with the Awami League is likely to be held in the first week of August.
-With New Age input
