report in Prothom Alo, Dec 28, 2023
The Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) has started its three-day public campaign and distribution of leaflets calling people to boycott the ‘dummy’ elections and build a public opinion in favour of their non-cooperation movement demanding the resignation of the incumbent government in the second phase of its ongoing movement.
According to concerned sources, the party is likely to declare the same type of programmes at the end of this 3-day public campaign. After that the BNP may call for programmes like strikes and blockades and will continue those programmes till the day of voting.
According to reliable sources in the BNP, there is a policy decision to continue the programmes even after the one-sided election. The BNP wants to continue their programmes until the political context in the country changes.
BNP standing committee member Nazrul Islam Khan distributed leaflets urging people to boycott the election on the roads from Motijheel to Dilkusha in the capital. The Jatiyatabadi Krishak Dal and Chhatra Dal also distributed leaflets separately with the same demand.
The Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami also distributed leaflets calling people to boycott the vote.
Apart from that, the Ganatantra Mancha, 12-party alliance, Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), Amar Bangladesh Party (AB Party), Gono Odhikar Parishad, Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal (JSD) and Jatiyatabadi Samamana Jote also brought out processions and distributed leaflets in the capital.
However, police intervened in the programmes held by the JSD and Ganatantra Mancha. They snatched away the banner from the procession brought out by the JSD.
BNP standing committee member Nazrul Islam spoke to the newspersons after the mass communication in the capital’s Dilkusha area.
Addressing the voters, he said, “Please don’t go to the polling centres. Don’t cooperate with the government which is playing with the fate of the people of the country. It is the first time in the history that a political party is fielding dummy candidates apart from its nominated candidate. They are doing this to have a good voter turnout in the polls. Now you see that people don’t support this election. People won’t go to the polling centres in this poll.”
He also raised questions as to why did the police have to sit with the councillors to boost voter turn-out had the people really supported the polls.
Nazrul Islam Khan said, “We want to ask why the police have to ask the councillors to bring the voters to the polling centres. Why do dummy candidates are needed for a good voter turn-out? Why are the people being threatened that their allowance cards will be cancelled if they don’t go to the polling centres?”
https://en.prothomalo.com/bangladesh/politics/072haf0qhj
