BNP moves to EC

Staff Correspondent: Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) has moved to the Election Commission (EC) to press conditions for participating in the upcoming municipality polls across the country.

A delegation of BNP comprising of Asadul Karim Shahin, Assistant Office Secretary of the party, and Emran Saleh Prince, Deputy Publicity Secretary, reached Election Commission around 11:45 am on Saturday.

The BNP delegation is set to press some demands to EC including reschedule to defer municipal polls by 15 days, stopping mass arrests in the name of joint forces, to release its detained leaders and activities, to transfer the UNOs and OCs of the upazilas before the polls, not to make observer any upstart organization in the polls, ensuring level-playing fields and to give right to the 50 lakh of new voters who are in waiting to include in the voter list.

Meanwhile, on Friday, BNP spokesperson Asaduzzaman Ripon said the party had decided to take part in the municipal elections and he set some conditions for the Election Commission to participate in the polls, including one that called for the voting to be deferred by 15 days.

But the Election Commission (EC) is unlikely to defer the municipality polls that were scheduled to be held on December 30 across the country, report media hours after Ripon pressed conditions.

S M Asaduzzaman, director of EC (public relations), on Friday told risingbd that there is no scope for EC to fulfill the BNP’s ‘condition’ to reschedule the municipality elections. The polls would be held on scheduled time that was announced by Chief Election Commission (CEC).

CEC Kazi Rakibuddin Ahmad on Tuesday announced that polls would be held in 236 municipalities for the first time on party lines on Deceber 30.

risingbd/Dhaka/Nov 28, 2015/Reza/A K Azad