The Election Commission (EC) has removed the Awami League’s boat symbol from its official website.
A visit to the website on Wednesday revealed that the symbol no longer appears next to the party’s name, following the suspension of its registration in May.
Earlier, on Tuesday, Asif Mahmud Shojib Bhuyain, adviser for the Local Government Ministry, raised questions in a post on Facebook regarding why the EC had sent a proposal to the Law Ministry to re-include the boat symbol of the Awami League, despite the party's activities being under a ban.
In his post, he wrote: “On what grounds have you sent the cursed 'boat' symbol for re-inclusion in the schedule to the Law Ministry? As a constitutional institution, you have blatantly disregarded this July uprising. Whose agenda are you implementing and for whose benefit are you retaining this symbol? Do you intend to return the symbol to the so-called refined Awami League dreamt of by the defeated? As a citizen of Bangladesh, I demand answers from the Election Commission.”
The Awami League government was ousted on August 5 last year through a student-public mass uprising.
On May 12 of this year, the interim government banned all activities of the Awami League and its affiliated, associated and like-minded organizations until the completion of ongoing trials at the International Crimes Tribunal (ICT).
At the same time, the EC suspended the party’s registration as a political organization.
