No quitting polls this time

The BNP this time would stand ground and not boycott the polls “no matter what”, the party's national standing committee decided last night.

The BNP policymakers in a meeting with party chief Khaleda Zia in the chair at her Gulshan office said they would “rather die” than quit the municipality polls scheduled for December 30, meeting sources said.

However, after the around two-hour-long meeting, BNP acting secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir told the press that the standing committee members believe there was no possibility of the municipality polls being free and fair.

“The BNP is taking part only for the sake of democracy,” he said.

He said the BNP would form a central monitoring cell led by himself to oversee the polls as well as to assist its candidates.

Besides, there would be a cell in each district and leaders of the districts and upazilas have been asked to observe the election atmosphere and keep the central monitoring cell informed.

In the absence of Fakhrul, BNP standing committee member Goyeshwar Chandra Roy would lead the central monitoring cell and Joint Secretary General Mohammad Shajahan would act as its member secretary.

In the meeting, held after a year and a half, BNP grassroots leaders were advised to attempt to reach a consensus with Jamaat-e-Islami over sharing mayor runners.

In case of their failure, Khaleda would interfere, said a BNP leader who was present in the meeting.

At the briefing, Fakhrul alleged that in the last one month 5,000 BNP leaders and activists were arrested and 1,000 of them were arrested after the polls schedule was announced on November 23.

“The standing committee thinks a level playing field cannot be ensured unless the arrested BNP men were released,” he added.

He demanded the release of top BNP leaders including standing committee members MK Anwar and Khandaker Mosharrof Hossain, and the BNP chief's adviser Shawkat Mahmud.

“The standing committee also believes that the Election Commission employed UNOs, deputy commissioners and additional DC's as election officials in some municipalities benching the commission's own manpower,” he said.

“Our fears about the elections not being fair has already come true during the submission and scrutiny of nomination papers,”

Fakhrul said.

While addressing a discussion earlier in the day, Fakhrul said his party would continue its movement in a democratic way to restore people's rights.

“Many BNP men, who had been with the movement for protecting people's democratic rights, were made to disappear. Some of them fell victims to extrajudicial killings and some were maimed in police firing,” he said.

The BNP organised the programme at the Institution of Engineers, Bangladesh, marking the International Human Rights Day yesterday.

Families of 10 people who were allegedly made to disappear at different times also spoke at the programme.

The victims' family members, including children, burst into tears, calling upon the prime minister to take initiatives so that they could have their fathers, husbands and sons back.