BNP won’t back off from polls this time: Fakhrul

BNP acting secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir said on Tuesday their party will remain active during the municipal elections until the results are announced, reports UNB.
“Many people ask us whether we’ll boycott municipal polls halfway through. We would like to clearly state that there’s no possibility of that. We’ve decided that we all will remain active in the election field until the announcement of the results,” he said.
He came up with the remarks while talking to reporters after the first meeting of the party’s ‘central monitoring cell’ formed for overseeing the December-30 elections to 235 municipalities.
The meeting was held at the BNP chairperson’s Gulshan office with Fakhrul Islam Alamgir in the chair.
BNP which had boycotted the January-5 national election in 2014 also stayed away from the elections to Dhaka and Chittagong city corporations midway through on April 28 this year.
Terming the municipal election an ‘acid test’ for the Election Commission, Fakhrul said the local and international organisations will accept the polls if the Commission can pass it.
He urged the Commission to remain alert and vigilance so that no one can establish undue influence on the election.
Replying to another question whether their party will extend its support to any other contestants in the municipalities where BNP has no nominated candidates, he replied in the negative.
Asked whether their party chief will join electioneering, Fakhrul said they are yet to take any decision in this regard.
At the meeting, Fakhrul said they discussed the formation of different teams to monitor the polls and some other issues relating to polls, including electioneering.
BNP standing committee members Lt Gen (retd) Mahbubur Rahman, ASM Hannan Shah, Dr Abdul Moyeen Khan, vice chairmen Abdullah Al Noman, Altaf Hossain Chowdhury, Selima Rahman, chairperson’s advisers Khandaker Mahbub Hossain and Osman Farroque were, among others, present at the meeting.
--Enam