A delegation of the National Citizen Party (NCP) will meet Chief Adviser Muhammad Yunus on Monday afternoon.
According to the party, the leaders will discuss the Election Commission’s alleged biased conduct and the current election situation.
A joint chief coordinator of the party told TIMES of Bangladesh that the party will present the administration’s “bias” regarding the elections during a meeting with the chief adviser in the afternoon.
The meeting is scheduled to be held at the Jamuna State Guesthouse around 5pm. A press release signed by Yasir Arafat, media secretary of NCP’s Central Election Steering Committee, was issued in this regard.
Speaking to TIMES, the NCP leader said that if the administration does not play a neutral role, the party will express its intention to withdraw from the elections to the chief adviser. Subsequently, they will also bring attention to the fact that they believe EC officials are working directly in favour of BNP.
NCP believes that if the EC had played a neutral role, then the nominations of 17 BNP candidates should have been cancelled on the basis of nominees having dual citizenship and were loan defaulters.
He added that, in order to pressure the EC into validating those candidates, BNP’s student wing Chhatra Dal had been carrying out protests in front of the Election Commission office during appeal hearings.
These were the issues the party wished to bring to the attention of the chief adviser, with the NCP also trying to inform several foreign diplomats, specifically ambassadors, that an attempt is being made to hold another rigged election to keep one party in power, even after the mass uprising in Bangladesh.
However, some observers suspect whether the NCP is merely using these complaints to postpone the February 12 election.
The delegation will be led by NCP Convener Nahid Islam and will include Asif Mahmud Shojib Bhuiyan, chairman of the Election Steering Committee; Monira Sharmin, secretary; and Zahirul Islam Musa, head of the Legal Aid Subcommittee of the Election Steering Committee.
