The National Sports Council (NSC) has dissolved the BCB’s most recently elected board following a formal investigation that uncovered serious and systematic irregularities in last October’s elections. The NSC has now made public the key findings of that inquiry.
What the investigation found
Pressure to nominate specific candidates
Government officials, including NSC officers and Saiful Islam, personal assistant to former sports adviser Asif Mahmud, applied direct pressure on district and divisional presidents to appoint specific individuals as councillors. The committee concluded this represented a coordinated attempt to manipulate the outcome of the vote.
Expired committees used to send councillors
The majority of convening committees whose members were used to submit councillor nominations had already passed their mandated terms. The investigation did not comment directly on one committee currently subject to High Court proceedings.
Voter list published late and in multiple versions
The final voter list was not published within the required timeframe, and multiple versions were released. Six districts were absent from the list published on 23 September. A revised list on 26 September included five of those six districts, raising serious questions about transparency and process.
BCB interference in Category 1
The BCB improperly inserted new members into convening committees with the specific aim of influencing Category 1 representation, enabling preferred candidates to be included as councillors and voted in accordingly.
Direct interference by former sports adviser
Based on multiple witness interviews, the committee found that former sports adviser Asif Mahmud Sajib Bhuiyan personally and improperly interfered in the election process. He is found to have directly changed the composition of convening committees and influenced voting in favour of preferred candidates. None of those implicated appeared before the committee to provide their account.
E-voting manipulated with adviser’s assistance
The e-voting process was found to have been systematically manipulated with the involvement of the sports adviser. The majority of councillors interviewed told the committee that the e-voting had been pre-arranged. Votes were cast from specific locations without privacy, and the secrecy of the ballot was not maintained. On the night of 5 October, a group gathered at the Sheraton hotel to cast e-votes collectively — a process the committee characterised as electoral fraud.
Undue influence to secure specific board members
Undue influence was applied, with the assistance of the adviser and senior NSC figures, to ensure the inclusion of Aminul Islam Bulbul and Nazmul Abedeen Fahim as councillors and to guarantee their positions on the board.
The NSC also noted that former board directors provided contradictory testimony to the investigation committee, while many others did not respond at all. Alongside its findings, the NSC has put forward a series of recommendations, including reforms to the BCB constitution to prevent similar irregularities in future elections.
