Transfer no one without reason
The 14-party alliance yesterday urged the Election Commission not to accept the Jatiya Oikyafront's demand for the withdrawal of 92 top officials from the civil and police administrations.
In a letter to Chief Election Commissioner KM Nurul Huda, the 14-party said the opposition alliance came up with the “illogical” demand “as part of its conspiracy to make the December 30 national election questionable”.
On Thursday, the Oikyafront, comprising the BNP and several other parties, demanded withdrawal of the 92 officials -- 22 civil servants and 70 senior police officials -- for what it said was ensuring a level playing field in the polls.
The officials, termed partisan by the alliance, included the secretaries of the EC, home and public administration ministries. An Oikyafront delegation handed over a list of the officials to the EC.
The BNP also alleged that the deputy commissioners, who have been made returning officers for the upcoming polls, were called in for a meeting at the Prime Minister's Office soon after they were briefed at the EC on November 13.
In its letter, the 14-party alliance said no returning officer attended any meeting at the PMO. However, several of the ROs might have gone there for meeting their former colleagues.
“We called upon the Election Commission not to transfer any officials without any specific reason,” Dilip Barua, general secretary of Bangladesher Samyabadi Dal, a component of the alliance, said yesterday.
He was talking to reporters after a 12-member team, led by him, handed over the letter to EC Secretary Helal Uddin Ahmed at his office.
On the withdrawal of the officials, he said the Oikyafront made the demand to achieve “political mileage”.
“Any change in the administration will make it weak and they [Oikyafront] will have a chance to hatch a conspiracy,” the letter said.
Dilip then said the Oikyafront was trying to raise question over the civil and police administrations “as part of its hidden agenda”.
Asked about it, he said, “They want to demoralise the civil administration by bringing bizarre allegations against it. They are doing it to fish in troubled waters … They want to make the constitutional bodies and the civil administration unstable.”
Referring to BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir's recent call to his party men to guard polling centres on the polling day, Dilip alleged that Fakhrul wanted to lead the election to the path of confrontation.
He also alleged that the BNP on one hand was saying it would participate in the polls and on the other was trying to foil it.
The letter said the BNP was coming up with “imaginary” complaints that returning officers were briefed at the PMO. In reality, no one was called to the PMO, it said.
“They are deputy commissioners, they go to different offices for official purposes. One or two such returning officers can go to the PMO for office work,” it said.
The 14-party alliance also questioned the role of BNP acting chairman Tarique Rahman in the party's nomination process.
Tarique's involvement in the process was a violation of the electoral code of conduct and the existing laws as he was a fugitive convict, the letter said.
The Oikyafront also violated the electoral rules by holding a daylong rally of lawyers on the Supreme Court premises on November 17, the letter read.
Comments