Nasiruddin Patwary, chief coordinator of the National Citizen Party (NCP), warned that the Election Commission would be overhauled “from top to bottom.”
He also criticised what he described as extreme “election engineering” in the last polls, pledging that those involved would one day face trial on Bangladeshi soil.
The NCP leader was speaking Monday at the inauguration of the newly elected committee of the Reporters Forum for Election and Democracy (RFED) and the farewell of the outgoing committee at the Election Training Institute auditorium in Agargaon, Dhaka.
Patwary said, “Many have spoken positively here, but it was a fully engineered election. Some may be offended; the chief of the Election Commission is present here. Perhaps after this statement I may not be allowed into this office again. But if another mass uprising happens, the first institution I will touch is the Election Commission, to change it from root to branch. My first target will be this.”
Alleging double standards in polling instructions, he said, “In Mamunul Haque’s constituency, it was directed that ballots marked outside the box would not be counted. But in my constituency, it was said ballots marked outside the box would be counted.”
He added, “On election day, Bangladesh saw how DGFI, NSI, and other intelligence agencies down to the DC office engineered the election in the most blatant way. We have shared that report internationally.”
Criticising the Election Commission for allowing loan defaulters to contest, he said, “The way loan defaulters were brought before the Commission should never have happened in Bangladesh’s civilized history after a mass uprising.”
“We hope the Commission will not engage in such activities in local government elections. If they do, the situation on the streets will be very heated,” he added.
