Voters have rejected the upazila election: Rizvi

"The voters have rejected the upazila election, not stepping into Awami League's trap," said BNP senior joint secretary general Ruhul Kabir Rizvi. He said, the votes of the voters are not needed. The results are already determined and those results are announced. That is why people have no interest in the election.

The BNP senior joint secretary general was speaking at a press briefing at 11:00am Wednesday morning at the party central office in Naya Paltan, Dhaka.

In support of his claim that the people had rejected the upazila parishad election, Ruhul Kabir Rizvi said, "State terrorism has snatched away people's voting rights. The upazila institution has been made a hub of looters and robbers. There are instances of a person being elected twice as upazila chairman in voterless elections and is now the owner of over a hundred bighas of land. Yet according to the law, he cannot own more than 60  bighas."

The BNP leader went on to say that the wealth of those who have become candidates for the second time, has increased by over 3000 per cent in comparison to the wealth recorded in their previous affidavits. The wealth of some has increased by over 1000 per cent. The wealth of a candidate in Gaibandha has increased by 4000 per cent. He went on to say, when anyone is declared to be chairman in a voterless election then there is a surfeit of leaders all over. That is why the people have outright rejected the upazila election rather than step into the trap of Awami League.

At the press briefing, Ruhul Kabir Rizvi also accused the law enforcement agencies of picking up a former Chhatra Dal leader. He said that on Tuesday, Dhaka University Chhatra Dal's former president and central Chhatra Dal's former vice president Mahidul Hasan Hiru was picked up from the Siddheswari grounds by plainclothesmen in a microbus while he was on the way to the mosque to offer Asr prayers. In another incident, two Rajshahi University Chhatra Dal leaders, Nafiul Islam Jibon and his friend Yunus Khan, were locked up in their room and beaten and tortured. They were threatened that they would be shot in the foot.

BNP senior secretary general Ruhul Kabir Rizvi alleged that the Awami plainclothes forces have emerged in a new form. He said, the oppression and harassment of students, youth, workers, intellectual and the rights-deprived people has resumed once again.

Ruhul Kabir Rizvi also raised the issue of border killings. He said that Bangladeshi nationals Abdul Jalil and Yasin Ali were brutally shot dead by the Indian Border Security Force BSF along the border.

Condemning the incident and protesting, he said it is as if India has taken up a direct and bloody aggression against Bangladesh. This has been possible because the dummy government has sold its soul. It is because of the Awami government's one-sided policy of appeasing India that BSF does not consider Bangladeshis to be humans.