Election fever grips municipalities
AL happy with poll
campaign; BNP fumes
at �partisan� EC
Election fever has gripped the 234 municipalities across the country with 48 hours left for kick-starting the polling. As curtain falls on campaigning from midnight today, the two major parties - ruling Awami League and its main rival BNP -- are in giving finishing touches to their campaigns for the Dec 30 municipal elections. Though AL expressed its satisfaction over the campaign, BNP leaders said they did not find level-playing field for campaigns due to constant intimidation and frequent harassment of its candidates by the ruling party cadres
Blaming the Election Commission for this, they claimed that they had gone for half-hearted campaigns because of arrests, attacks, filing of false cases, threats and joint drives against BNP-backed candidates and supporters.
The Awami League (AL) has gone all out to make party-backed candidates victorious in the polls.
As per the latest plan, the ruling party has deployed over a hundred central sub-committee assistant secretaries to their respective divisions to collect the latest information about the election and carry out campaigning along with central leaders in this regard.
The assistant secretaries have also been asked to revert back to the AL monitoring cell at Dhanmondi immediately after they get the required information, AL insiders said.
AL central organising secretary Mizbah Uddin Siraj yesterday told The Independent: Yes, the party high-ups have deployed AL assistant secretaries to collect information about the polls, drum up support for AL-preferred candidates and minimise intra-party conflicts at the grassroots level.
As only two days are left for the municipality elections, were putting our best efforts to make the candidates contesting under the Boat symbol (ALs election symbol) victorious, said Siraj, who is now in Sylhet Division.
In our division, the positions of AL-backed candidates are very strong. I hope our candidates will be victorious in most of the municipalities, he added.
AL assistant secretary Asaduzzaman Biplob said, The party deployed us to collect information about some
grassroots leaders who are working against party-backed candidates. I have already sent my reports to our monitoring cell. We are also minimising intra-party feuds among grassroots leaders, and joining mass-contact programmes along with our candidates. We request the people to vote for Nouka, he added.
Another AL assistant secretary, Md. Towhidul Islam Bulbul, who is now camping in Joypurhat, said, I am informing the party high-ups about the latest situation in Joypurhat. The positions of AL-backed candidates are very strong here. I hope they will do good.
Since these local government elections are going to be held under the party banners for the first time, the ruling AL wants to have a sweeping victory at any cost, said party insiders.
The party has already formed seven teams comprising central leaders and organising secretaries for seven divisions . These teams had started campaigning massively for party-backed candidates from Monday.
Meanwhile, BNP leaders have expressed resentment over the Election Commissions alleged failure in creating a level playing field for all contestants for the December 30 municipal polls.
Senior party leaders claimed that they had gone for half-hearted campaigning because of arrests, attacks, filing of false cases, threats and joint drives against BNP-backed candidates and supporters.
The BNP leaders said they were taking part in the polls following assurances by the government and EC that the mayoral polls would be held in a fair manner. But their hopes were dashed by the activities of the government and EC, they added. The leaders, however, asserted that they would be in the race despite all the obstacles and unmask the real face of the government and EC.
In a related development, a BNP delegation, led by standing committee member Dr Abdul Moyeen Khan, yesterday lodged a complaint with the EC that the election atmosphere has seriously deteriorated in the past one week.
The team urged the Chief Election Commissioner to play a more responsible role in holding the municipal polls in a free and fair manner.
Moyeen Khan told reporters that Army deployment was necessary to help people to cast their votes unhindered.
BNP chairperson Khaleda Zia will hold a press conference at her Gulshan office today to highlight all the aspects of the alleged irregularities by ruling party activists. She is also likely to call on voters to cast their votes in favour of BNP-backed candidates, insiders said.
On Saturday, the former PM had started a digital campaign in favour of the partys mayoral candidates.
As part of the campaign, she recorded a video footage to be uploaded on Facebook, Google and the party website, said BNP assistant publicity secretary Imran Saleh Prince.
The BNP chief also visited the partys central monitoring cell.
BNP standing committee member Lt Gen. (Retd) Mahbubur Rahman said a fair election would only be possible if the government played a sincere role and EC remained neutral.
BNP vice chairman Abdullah Al Noman, who was campaigning in Chittagong, alleged that the party candidate for Satkania municipality was forced to run away from the race. Were very disappointed at the roles of the government and EC, he added.
