Stay off upazila polls or face the music

BNP will take tough organisational actions against those party men who would contest in the upcoming upazila polls ignoring its decision of boycotting the elections.

The party wants to show the world that the upazila polls are one-sided elections without voters like the last national election, party insiders said.

BNP has already conveyed a message to the party's grassroots that those who have already filed nomination papers as independents must withdraw.

"If anyone violates the party's instruction, tough organisational actions will be taken against them," Syed Emran Saleh Prince, an organising secretary of the BNP, told The Daily Star yesterday.

Meanwhile, BNP in a press statement yesterday said it will not take part in the upazila polls as it does not want to be a part of the "farcical elections".

The decision was taken at a BNP standing committee meeting, the highest policymaking body of the party, on Monday night.

Earlier, the BNP high-ups were in two minds about joining the upazila polls following the announcement of the election schedule by the Election Commission.

BNP acting chairman Tarique Rahman had several virtual meetings with the party vice chairmen, joint secretary generals and organising secretaries, and former upazila chairmen to know their opinions on joining the upazila polls, to be held in four phases from May 8.

BNP standing committee member Goyeshwar Chandra Roy yesterday said the party is sticking to its stance on boycotting polls under the Awami League government.

"Tens of thousands of BNP leaders and activists are facing cases and more than 27,000 party men were sent to jail over the January 7 parliamentary polls. Amid such a situation, we don't want to run into further troubles by joining the polls," he told The Daily Star.

Some 45 BNP leaders have reportedly filed nomination papers to run for upazila chairman in the May 8 polls. The last date for withdrawing nominations is April 22.

BNP leaders think the number is not big as 150 upazilas will go to polls on May 8. They also believe many of the 45 party men would withdraw.

They said if needed the senior BNP leaders will talk to the chairman aspirants to persuade them to withdraw.

In the BNP standing committee meeting on Monday night, some committee members opined that the party should take a soft stance on independents. However, the majority of the committee members favoured getting tough on such aspirants.

BNP has been staying away from all elections since 2019.

The opposition party earlier expelled those leaders who contested polls going against its decision.

The AL, however, did not nominate any candidate for the upazila polls as it wants to allow the party leaders and activists to run as independents.