Choose pro-minority candidates

Minority community leaders yesterday demanded that all political parties and alliances refrain from nominating the candidates who work against the interest of minorities, in the next national polls.

They said the people of their communities will not vote and even boycott the election, if any such candidates get nomination in the polls expected to be held in late 2018.

They also demanded security for minorities so that they do not fall victim to pre- and post-polls violence.

The demands were made at a press conference organised by a pre-polls coordination committee of religious and ethnic minorities at Dhaka Reporters Unity.

A total of 17 minority organisations formed the committee, led by Bangladesh Hindu-Bouddha-Christian OikyaParishad, ahead of the 11th national election.

“According to our experience in the previous years, a number of elected lawmakers across the country were involved in violence against the minority communities either directly or indirectly,” Advocate RanaDasgupta, coordinator of the committee, told The Daily Star after the conference.

“That's why, we had no alternative to making the demands considering the reality and resisting violence against the minorities,” he said.

He also urged parties and alliances to nominate a sufficient number of candidates from the minority communities so that their representation in parliament becomes proportional to their population.