Ballot stuffing at night, no voting during day

The Election Commission suspended voting in all 89 centres of the upazila parishad elections in Katiadi upazila of Kishoreganj on Sunday due to widespread stuffing of ballot boxes.

District election officer and returning officer Mohammad Tajul Islam called off the voting at around 9:30am on Sunday. Following the announcement, a written notice signed by presiding officer Shah Alam was hung on the wall of Baghata High School polling centre.

The letter read, “A group of miscreants have snatched 729 ballot papers for chairman, vice-chairman and female vice-chairman posts in 85 Chatal Baghata High School centre from me on Saturday night. Therefore, I am calling off voting at the station.”

Voting to five polling stations was suspended in the morning and the voting to the remaining 84 polling stations was suspended by 9:30am over stuffing votes at night, said Mohammad Tajul Islam.

Kishoreganj additional superintendent of police Shafiqul Islam and Katiadi police officer-in-charge (OC) Shamsuddin have been withdrawn over the incidents of vote rigging

According to the returning officers office, the ballot boxes were filled with ballots stamped on Awami League’s party symbol ‘Boat’ by 10:00-11:00pm the night before the voting day.

The source claimed that a group of miscreants came and snatched all the election officers' mobile phones, stamped the ballot papers, stuffed the ballot boxes and left.

Police on duty stood around, sometimes assisting the miscreants, sources also said.

An officer from the returning officer’s office on condition of anonymity told Prothom Alo that they could not sleep after the incident took place in Katiadi.

Also, the returning officer informed the EC about massive ballot stuffing in other centres such as Chatal Baghata Government Primary School, Hazibari Government Primary School, Borobari Government Primary School and so on.

There are six aspirants fighting for the chairman post.

Terming the allegation of ballot stuffing as ‘rumours’, AL candidate Tania Sultana said, EC has cancelled the vote based on false allegations of the oppositions.
She demanded announcement of the election results based on votes cast.

Upazila parishad voting was scheduled for all 13 upazilas of Kishoreganj district on Sunday. In Mithamon upazila, Asia Alam, who is the president Abdul Hamid's sister, won uncontested.

The votes were suspended in four of Bajitpur upazila centres and three centres of Bhairab upazila. Voting for a few minutes was postponed for some time in two centres in Nikli upazila due to clashes between two groups. Polls in other upazilas were relatively peaceful. However, voter turnout was low in all upazilas.

Among the two centres of Azim Uddin High School of Kishoreganj Sadar, 286 votes were cast in the women's centre while there were 642 votes in the male centre. However, there were 1,976 votes in the male center and more than 2,000 votes were cast in women centre in the parliamentary election held less than three months before. Those votes were received by the Awami League candidate at the time.

A voter at Islamia Boarding Little Friends Kindergarten centre questioned why the AL supporters voters were not voting since the BNP was not in the field?

*This piece originally appeared in Prothom Alo print edition has been rewritten in English by Farjana Liakat