Mohammad Al-Masum Molla

The BNP believes it has gained a lot by not taking part in the ongoing UP polls. It says the incompetence of the Election Commission has been further exposed, its activists have been spared being accused in false cases, and the ruling party’s grassroots have weakened because of bitter infighting.

The opposition party has boycotted the ongoing union parishad elections but many of its leaders are contesting the polls as independents.

Top BNP leaders said it has been proved again that “this Election Commission and government cannot hold a free and fair election”.

“The biggest thing proved is that there is no existence of the Election Commission. People have been deprived of their right to cast votes. The total electoral system has been destroyed and the government did it intentionally,” BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir told The Daily Star.

After boycotting the 2014 parliamentary polls, the party contested the last general election and continued taking part in elections to local government bodies with its electoral symbol “sheaf of paddy”.

After holding a standing committee meeting in February this year, the BNP announced that it decided not to contest the UP elections.

Party leaders said they contested local government elections thinking that the EC with the help of the government would hold polls in a free and fair manner.