Two panels have placed 12 demands, including manual vote counting, in the Rajshahi University Central Students’ Union (Rucsu) election.
The demands were announced on Saturday at a press conference held at Amtala, beside the university transport market.
The two panels are the Abir-Jibon-Esha Parishad, backed by Chhatra Dal, and the Rucsu for Radical Change panel, supported by Chhatra Adhikar Parishad and Chhatra Federation.
Their demands include:
- Provision of transparent ballot boxes and opening them before journalists and polling agents at the beginning of the election.
- Use of high-quality indelible ink so that marks on voters’ fingers cannot be erased.
- Publication of the voter list with photographs within one day.
- Manual counting of votes to ensure transparency.
- Fixing campaign expenditure for candidates.
- Setting a limit on the number of posters for each panel or candidate.
- Ensuring agents’ presence during ballot printing, binding, and numbering.
- Arranging sufficient polling booths.
- Keeping voter numbers displayed on a digital board in real time.
- Making the cyberbullying cell effective and publishing a guideline on its operation.
The panels also called for a ban on all Rajshahi University-based groups and pages, claiming that these are used for cyberbullying, slut-shaming, harassing female students, and spreading misinformation against candidates, which they described as punishable offences. They specifically accused the university parliament and Rajshahi University News 24 of such activities and demanded immediate action. They further said that on election day, voters must not be handed the ballot list directly.
Highlighting concerns, they said weaknesses of the Election Commission have already been exposed since the announcement of the schedule, which has created uncertainty. Questions have arisen among the panels about the neutrality of the commission.
They alleged that Chhatra Shibir has shown no respect for the electoral code of conduct, instead distributing attar in dormitories, installing water tanks, organizing khichuri parties, muri parties, and other offerings to influence students.
They also said they were seeing the introduction of the policy of “money decides the vote”. This is a clear violation of the code of conduct. Although they have lodged repeated complaints, no action has been taken. If this continues, a fair and impartial Rucsu election will not be possible.
They further alleged that in the dormitories, extra facilities have been given to Chhatra Shibir in assigning ballot numbers, which they described as a clear display of bias.
Vice president, general secretary, assistant general secretary, and other candidates from both panels were present at the press conference.
Earlier, on Thursday, the Sachetan Shikkharthi Parishad panel, backed by the Islami Chhatra Andolon Rajshahi University unit, had also demanded manual counting of votes at the time of announcing its panel.