Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has brushed aside the allegations of vote rigging against her party-backed candidates in the ongoing upazila polls, saying that a section of media was spreading propaganda against her party.
“Jamaat has won several chairman and vice-chairman posts in the upazila elections. If the Awami League would rig votes, Jamaat could not win a single post,” Sheikh Hasina, also president of the ruling Awami League, said while addressing a discussion in the capital yesterday.
The Awami League organised the programme to mark the country’s 44th Independence Day.
The premier declared her plan to put into operation the electronic voting system in election next time.
“None will be able to stuff the ballot papers if we introduce the electronic voting system. Election will be held in future by using EVMs (Electronic Voting Machine),” she said.
The Awami League president expressed her opinion to hold the local body elections under party banner.
“As the upazila polls are non-partisan, we have no control over anything,” she said.
Though there has been no chance for the candidates to use party symbols in the local body elections, all political parties extend support to them.
AL General Secretary and LGRD Minister Syed Ashraful Islam has recently hinted that the government would bring an amendment to the law to hold such elections under the party banner.
Mentioning the results of the ongoing upazila polls, the Awami League chief said the Awami League had many a candidate in each upazila but as the party was careful about the matter this time, it could ensure single candidate that helped Awami League win the victory.
“When our candidates suffer defeat, some media say AL has lost popularity and when it secured a large number of seats, they blamed us for rigging,” the premier said.
The government came under huge criticism as the candidates backed by the ruling party won a majority seats in the third phase of upazila polls.
The premier blamed BNP Senior Vice-Chairman Tarique Rahman for distorting the history.
Tarique, who has been in London on parole, recently said that Ziaur Rahman was the country’s first president.
Pointing her finger at the BNP, the prime minister said once they used to say that Zia was the proclaimer of independence and now they are saying that Zia was the first president.
She said Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was the first president of Bangladesh.
Senior leaders Amir Hossain Amu, Tofail Ahmed, Suranjit Sengupta, Matia Chowdhury, Syed Ashraful Islam also addressed the programme with party presidium member Syeda Sajeda Chowdhury in the chair.
