BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir yesterday alleged that they have been defeated through vote dacoity, with the ruling party resorting to state terrorism. Terming the just-concluded 11th parliamentary polls as the most tainted election in the country’s history, Fakhrul demanded cancellation of the election and its results and holding re-election immediately under a non-partisan government. “The election has been held by creating state terrorism through panic by creating a battle-like situation. All the state machineries from the judiciary, administration and law enforcers were employed. No such election has ever been held in the country by using the state machineries in an unprecedented manner,” he claimed while briefing reporters after a meeting of the party’s standing committee at the chair person’s political office in Gulshan last (Sunday) night.
He said they reject the entire election and its results came out with “unprecedented terrorism, state terrorism and vote dacoity”. “We think a fresh election should be held under a non-partisan government after cancelling the stigmatised election,” he added. Fakhrul said the election has lost its acceptance even earlier as hundreds of opposition leaders have been arrested in hundreds of fictitious cases.
“The government used the entire state machinery to obstruct the Opposition and start a reign of terror, creating panic across the country. Even opposition agents have been arrested by targeting them. Vote rigging started in the evening prior to Election Day while RAB and police personnel assisted in it,” he alleged.
He also alleged that the polling centres were also captured after 11am on the polling day while voters were coming out. The state forces assisted them by removing the opposition supporters, he said. The BNP secretary-general reiterated that this election proved that their boycott of the January 5, 2014 general elections was the appropriate step. “The vote rigging was done in a planned manner. The vote engineering has been done on the previous night, depriving the people from enfranchising their rights. It was nothing apart from creating panic,” he claimed.
He said that there were no foreign observers during the elections as observers from the US had not been not allowed to come to Bangladesh, while the UK did not send observers. “Those who came were invited by the government,” he added.
Asked whether the MPs-elect from the BNP would take oath, Mirza Alamgir, who has been elected from Bogura-6 constituency, replied in the negative, saying they have rejected the election and its results. He described the chief election commissioner as the most partial person in the commission, adding that all his activities have already been questioned.
The BNP leader said they would determine their next course of political action after collecting all the necessary data and in consultation with partners of the Jatiya Oikyafront and 20-Party Alliance. He hinted that they would carry out a movement to materialise their demands to cancel the poll results along with legal measures. The BNP leader also described different incidents of rigging of votes and their agents being forced out from the polling centres.
Later, a meeting of the 20-Party Alliance was held with BNP leader Nazrul Islam Khan in the chair, where they discussed and evaluated the debacle in the elections and the next course of action. Meanwhile, a meeting of the steering committee of the Jatiya Oikyafront was held with Dr Kamal Hossain in the chair.
The meeting also discussed the latest developments in the political arena after the elections and strategies to take the next course of action.
In another development, an official of the US embassy in Dhaka yesterday (Monday) met BNP senior joint secretary-general Ruhul Kabir Rizvi at the party’s central office in the city. The party handed over different documents related to its allegations of vote rigging to the official, sources said.