JOF to stay in polls until end: Dr Kamal

Call for EC to ensure suffrage

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FE Report | Published: December 29, 2018 22:24:00

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Jatiya Oikya Front (JOF) convener Dr Kamal Hossain said on Saturday their candidates would not retract from contesting today's electoral race.
"We'll stick to the ground," he said in reply to the prime minister's latest instruction to her party men to stay at centres if the JOF boycotts polls.
The leader of the opposition alliance made this strong resolve while briefing local and foreign media at Dhaka Reporter's Unity hours before the election.
Dr Kamal, also president of Gono Forum that partners the alliance, apprehended vote rigging and violence by ruling-party men with the help of the administration.
Instead of being a healthy competition, the campaign trail fast turned into a nightmare as arrests, threats, intimidation, attacks on opposition candidates and their supporters, he said.
"These are not stray incidents but designed systematically to exclude opposition leaders and candidates by injury and even death," he said.
The noted jurist urged voters to go to police stations early morning to exercise their volition and stay there until the announcement of results.
"If you fear, you're finished. If you resist, you're Bangladesh," said the supreme leader of the alliance of five political parties, including Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP).
He said there should have been a festive atmosphere centring the election. But it is not so, and the voters are in fear.
It is high time to remove this apprehension, Dr Kamal made the call.
He pleaded law-enforcers, administration, election watchdog, returning officers and others to act neutrally to ensure people's right to vote.
"Returning officers, assistant returning officers and others involved in poll activities are respected persons. If you discharge your duties properly, it'll increase your dignity...," he said.
Dr Kamal further said, "If you snatch anyone's right, remember that someone else is taking away the right of your father, mother, wife and children."
"If you do this, people, history and the law won't forgive you," he went on.
About the alliance's likelihood of boycotting polls if anything unexpected happen during polling, he said they would discuss possible options like re-elections if massive irregularities take place.
On the same issue, BNP standing committee member Nazrul Islam Khan said they have decided to stay in the race until the end.
"If our agents don't get access and vote rigging takes place, we will sit and make an alternative decision through discussion," he added.
BNP senior leader Moazzem Hossain Alal, Gonoshasthaya Kendra founder Dr Zafrullah Chowdhury and Gono Forum executive president Subrata Chowdhury and its presidium member Jaglul Haider Afrik, among others, were present.
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