The BNP will not take part in the upcoming union parishad elections, the party’s Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir said on Sunday.
His announcement came on Sunday afternoon at a press conference held at the party chairperson’s Gulshan office in Dhaka.
“BNP had decided to participate in the local government elections, despite facing adversity, because it believes in democracy. But the recently held elections proved that the current Election Commission (EC) is incapable of holding them in a free and fair manner,” said Fakhrul.
“Their [EC] main goal is to implement the incumbent government’s agenda.”
He continued: “BNP has always opposed the idea of party nominations in the local government elections. That’s why, under the current horrible circumstances, BNP has decided to not participate in the union parishad elections.”
The senior BNP leader held the press conference to share the decisions taken at the latest meeting of the party’s Standing Committee.
He said the committee condemned the government’s interference in the recently held upazila parishad and municipality polls and the EC’s utter failure to hold the elections impartially.
The meeting also called for immediate release of all the people detained under the Digital Security Act and demanded annulment of the law.
Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) KM Nurul Huda recently had announced that they were planning to start the union parishad elections in a large scale across the country in mid-May.
There are about 4,500 union parishads in the country. The last polls were held five years back in 2016 in six phases and party symbols were used in the polls. The upcoming election will also be held with party symbol this time too, the CEC said.
