Veteran Awami League leader Tofail Ahmed Thursday said the BNP this time too would make the army controversial if their demand for army deployment is met in the Gazipur City Corporation election.
A three-member delegation led by Tofail Ahmed met Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Kazi Rakibuddin Ahmad and assured him of all kinds of assistance from the government to hold a fair GCC election.
He outright rejected the BNP’s demand for army deployment saying that the BNP itself did not deploy army in the local government elections when it was in power.
The BNP even questioned Reshma’s rescue by the army from the collapsed Rana Plaza building in Savar, he said: “Now they should not demand for army deployment.”
Following the national election in 2008, BNP said the army put Awami League in power. If this time army is deployed they will make it controversial again, Tofail observed.
However, it is the EC’s decision to deploy army in Gazipur; if it thinks it can do that. The government will only assist the EC in holding a free, fair and impartial election, he added.
In the last four city corporation elections, many times the BNP has raised allegations against the EC and the government. But when they won all four city polls, they kept mum, he noted.
The former minister also said that the incumbent EC would hold the next general elections in free, fair and neutral manner like that of the recent local body polls across the country.
About the BNP allegation that Awami League formed a cell in the prime minister’s office, he said the claim was baseless.
Earlier, BNP Standing Committee Member MK Anwar told the EC that the prime minister was directly interfering in the GCC polls by forming a cell in her office.
Awami League Deputy Office Secretary Mrinal Kanti Das was also present at the meeting.
