Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Nurul Huda and Election Commission (EC) Secretary Helaluddin Ahmed are working in unison to implement the government's agenda of “snatching” people's right to vote, BNP has alleged.
“The Election Commission is being run by people who have sold themselves out. They are working to take away people's right to vote to appease Sheikh Hasina,"BNP Senior Secretary General Ruhul Kabir Rizvi said during a press conference at the party’s Naya Paltan office in Dhaka on Sunday.
"The CEC said EVMs would be used, in a limited manner, in Khulna, while in Chittagong, the Election Commission would procure 84,000 EVMs initially.
“They are constantly trying to implement the government's agenda."
Despite resistance from most of the opposition parties, civil society members, journalists, election observers and social organizations, the Election Commission is trying to implement the use of EVMs only to please the government, Rizvi was quoted in a report by UNB.
Rizvi said he feared that, through the amendment of the Representation of People Order (RPO), the Election Commission is planning to use the EVMs on a large scale in the upcoming 11th national election – as the government's weapon to hold on to power.
The senior BNP leader urged the Election Commission to back out of its plan to use EVMs in the polls, and said the use of EVMs, ignoring public opinion, is "tantamount to snatching people's voting rights".
Rizvi also said on this day in 2006, Awami League leaders and activists unleashed political violence in Dhaka and other parts of the country.
"People have not forgotten the awful killings of the Awami League men," he said. "They beat six people to death with sticks and brickbats in the capital's Paltan area, and danced on the dead bodies at the behest of Sheikh Hasina."
Rizvi further alleged that, over the last 12 years, Awami League had subjected many leaders and activists of BNP and other political parties to killing, enforced disappearance and extrajudicial killing.
"These are serious crimes against humanity, and Awami League must face trial for the offences."
