Awami League general secretary and road transport and bridges minister Obaidul Quader yesterday accused BNP of hatching conspiracy to make the Dhaka city corporations polls questionable sensing its defeat. “After failing to garner support of the voters, BNP is hiring armed goons to create anarchy ahead of the city polls . . . there is information that it has planned to deploy 500 terrorists for each polling centre to establish their control,” said Quader while briefing journalists after party’s secretariat meeting.

Mentioning that two mayoral candidates of Awami League have clean image, Obaidul Quader expressed the hope that the voters will elect them mayors for building Dhaka as a developed city free from pollution, water logging and traffic congestion. He said BNP is carrying out negative propaganda against the election as well as the AL candidates because it does not want a peaceful election sensing their certain defeat. Stealing votes and capturing polling booths are the main target of BNP, he said and urged the Election Commission to strictly maintain peaceful atmosphere so that voters can cast their votes properly.

“We hope the Election Commission will ensure peaceful election environment and the law enforcers will play role properly during the election,” he added. AL joint general secretary AFM Bahauddin Nasim, organising secretaries Ahmad Hossain, BM Mozammel Haque, SM Kamal Hossain, Mirza Azam, Advocate Afzal Hossain, Shakhawat Hossain Shafique, labour affairs secretary Habibur Rahman Siraj, publicity and publication secretary Abdus Sobhan Golap, relief and welfare secretary Sujit Roy Nandi, office secretary Barrister Biplop Barua, science and technology affairs secretary Abdus Sabur and deputy office secretary Sayem Khan, among others, were present at the meeting.