Bangladesh polls: NCP, BNP question neutrality of Election Commission

Dhaka: As Bangladesh gears up for the general elections, the National Citizen Party (NCP) expressed doubts over the Election Commission’s (EC) ability to hold credible and neutral polls in the country, local media reported.

Addressing a press briefing at the party’s central office in Dhaka on Sunday night, the NCP spokesperson Asif Mahmud Shojib Bhuyain said that the EC is incapable of conducting fair polls.

“The Election Commission has legalised candidacies in violation of several existing laws, including those in the constitution and the Representation of the People Order (RPO). This commission will not be able to organise a fair election,” Bangladesh’s leading newspaper, The Daily Star, quoted the NCP leader as saying.

Asif noted that the EC had been conducting hearings on the legality of candidacies until Sunday, describing the commission members’ meeting with Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir during the verdict announcement as a “warning”.

“We believe the verdict is fabricated and predetermined,” he asserted.

Asif further accused the EC of validating a BNP candidate with dual citizenship by deliberately permitting a mob to exert pressure outside the commission premises.

Meanwhile, BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir called on the EC to act neutrally, following a meeting with Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) AMM Nasir Uddin on Sunday evening in Dhaka.

Earlier on Sunday morning, leaders and workers of the BNP’s student wing, Jatiyatabadi Chhatra Dal (JCD), staged a sit-in outside the EC headquarters in Dhaka, accusing the poll body of bias in postal ballot and student union election verdicts, local media reported.

Additionally, amid rising political tension ahead of the polls in the South Asian nation, a Jamaat-e-Islami delegation, led by party leader Syed Abdullah Mohammad Taher, met the interim government’s Chief Advisor, Muhammad Yunus, on Sunday.

The delegation raised concerns over what it described as “biased” conduct of some Superintendents of Police (SPs) and Deputy Commissioners (DCs) at the field level.

“We have prepared a list of those (DCs and SPs). We will continue to observe. We have verbally informed the Election Commission by identifying such individuals. We have not submitted anything in writing. We conveyed the matter to the chief advisor,” The Daily Star quoted Taher as saying following the meeting, while addressing journalists.

Bangladesh’s elections, scheduled for February 12, are unfolding amid escalating political tensions as rifts widen across party lines.