EC removes electoral symbol ‘boat’ from its website

Bangladesh Awami League’s electoral symbol ‘boat’ has been removed from the website of the election commission (EC). Currently the registration of the Awami League is suspended.

EC secretariat’s system manager Rafiqul Haque, who is in charge of overseeing the website, told Prothom Alo on Wednesday that he has removed the electoral symbol “boat” at the order of the authorities.

Earlier on 13 July, election commissioner Abdur Rahmanel Masud said although the registration of the Awami League has been suspended, its electoral symbol “boat” will not be removed now. He further said “shapla” (water lilly) will also not be included as an electoral symbol.

Following this, local government adviser Asif Mahmud Shojib Bhuyain on Tuesday night raised a question in his verified Facebook post on the EC’s initiative to include in the schedule the boat symbol.

On which consideration did you send the cursed “boat” symbol to the law ministry for inclusion in the schedule, he asked.

He further writes, you as a constitutional organisation just completely ignored the mass uprising. Whose agenda do you want to serve keeping this symbol and to whom would you allocate this? Do you want to return the symbol to the refined Awami League, as dreamt by the defeated force? As a citizen of Bangladesh, I’m asking this question to the election commission.

Later on this morning, the symbol of Awami League has been removed from the EC’s website though the party name is still there.

“I was asked to update the website. That is why I’ve removed the boat symbol,” Rafiqul Haque told Prothom Alo at noon.