Explain remarks on polls

The Awami League-led 14-party alliance yesterday sought explanation from its ally -- Workers Party of Bangladesh President Rashed Khan Menon -- for his recent statement on the 11th parliamentary election.

The alliance wrote to Menon last night after it held a meeting at the house of its spokesperson Mohammed Nasim in the capital’s Dhanmondi.

The letter signed by Nasim reads, “The meeting of the 14-party alliance discussed elaborately about the statement you have given in Barisal recently on the national election held on December 30, 2018 … your statement is not acceptable by any means.

“Your untrue statement created confusion in people’s mind at the time when the country’s democracy is moving forward under the leadership of honourable Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. And your such statement is completely opposite to the 14-party’s election-related explanation. Thus, [we are] requesting you to give an explanation about your election-related statement.”  

On October 19, Menon alleged that people could not cast their votes in the December 30 parliamentary polls.

“Although I was elected in the election, I am testifying that people couldn’t cast their votes in that election. They couldn’t vote in the union parishad and upazila parishad polls,” he said while addressing a conference of the party’s Barishal district unit in Barishal city. 

After the statement, Road Transport and Bridges Minister Obaidul Quader, also AL general secretary, asked whether Menon would ask this question if he were a minister.

Menon, who was a minister in the last cabinet of Hasina, later said his remarks were presented partially and that sent a wrong message to the politics of the national and 14-party alliance.