Joining upazila polls a \\\'morale booster\\\' for BNP

Though the party boycotted the January 5 national election, BNP is going to participate in the upazila polls in a bid to invigorate its frustrated grassroots-level leaders and activists, and establish its influence on local politics. Buoyed by their successes in the five city polls held last year and people’s “low response” to the January 5 election, the party high-ups believe that they have the strong possibility to win polls in most local bodies if there is no election engineering. Many BNP leaders, meanwhile, have bought nomination papers following the directives of the party high-command and some of them already submitted those to contest the first phase of elections slated for February 19. “Upazila elections are non-political ones. But our party leaders will contest the polls with people’s support as per the expectations of the party grassroots,” said BNP standing committee member Lt Gen (retd) Mahbubur Rahman. Mentioning BNP a pro-election party, he said their party high-ups are taking the election with a great importance as local bodies cement the foundation of democracy, according to UNB.