The Awami League wants future upazila parishad elections to be held among political parties like the national poll.
Prime Minister and Awami League President Sheikh Hasina instructed party’s General Secretary Syed Ashraful Islam to take initiatives towards that end, leaders in the party’s Working Committee told the Dhaka Tribune last night.
They said the premier had come up with such desire as more candidates from the ruling party were set to contest the upcoming upazila elections defying an order of the party high command.
The working committee meeting was held at Hasina’s official residence Ganabhaban last night.
Earlier, Hasina had directed the ministers and lawmakers from her party and its organising secretaries to ensure single candidate in each seat as the BNP had also decided to contest the upazila polls.
However, the Awami League leaders failed to ensure single candidate in many upazilas.
Ashraf told the meeting that the difficulty in choosing single candidate for each upazila could be avoided if the polls were held among parties in which case the candidates would get the symbols of the parties they belonged to.
The rebel candidates would not get any favour if these polls were partisan, the leaders quoted Ashraf as saying.
A number of leaders supported Ashraf’s view.
During the last polls to city corporations and municipalities, Ashraf told the media that although the local body polls were non-partisan as per the electoral law, the mood in the poll areas had always been partisan, which proved that people wanted party candidates in these polls.
Sources said the AL Working Committee had approved dividing the Dhaka city unit of the party into two. It also decided to hold its meeting, which is now held once every two months, at least once a month.
The meeting discussed the US embargo on using US funds for training the Rapid Action Battalion because of its “extrajudicial killings.”
A few leaders told the Dhaka Tribune that Hasina said there was no need for US funds to train the law enforcement agency.
“For RAB we do not need funds from those who kill terrorists while capturing them,” the leaders quoted Hasina as saying.
“The BNP government formed RAB and as the then leader of the opposition I criticised it, but many foreign diplomats in Dhaka at that time praised RAB’s activities as ‘pro-people.’ Why are they vocal against RAB now?” she said.
Hasina directed Cultural Affairs Minister Asaduzzaman Noor to arrange a gathering of three lakh people to sing the national anthem on the Independence Day to set a new Guinness record.
India now holds the record with 1.5 lakh people participating on January 25, 2012.