Ruling party planning to grab polling centres: Ishraque

BNP mayoral candidate for Dhaka South City Corporation Ishraque Hossain today drew attention of Brent Christensen, political counselor of US embassy in Dhaka, alleging that the ruling quarter is planning to grab centres during tomorrow’s elections.

“The ruling party’s terrorists are being gathered in Dhaka from different districts to grab polling centres tomorrow and we have discussed the matter with a representative of the US embassy,” Ishraque told reporters after emerging from the meeting in Gulshan area of Dhaka this noon.

Ishraque said they held a meeting with Brent Christensen as the representative wanted to know the latest situation regarding the Dhaka North and South City Corporation Elections.

Christensen also held a meeting with Awami League candidate for Dhaka South City Corporation Fazle Noor Taposh at the same place around 12:00pm.

Ishraque, responding to a query, told reporters that, “Only Allah can say what will happen tomorrow. But we can at least say from previous experience what sort of activities will take place during the voting.”

“In a survey, I saw the Sheaf of Paddy (BNP’s electoral symbol) is taking a lead of around 80 per cent in the election,” the BNP candidate said without further clarification.

The ruling quarter is hatching a plan to thwart “the victory of the Sheaf of Paddy” sensing “absolute debacle” in the election, he said.

Citing instances of irregularities in the previous elections, he said no irregularities including vote centre grabbing will be accepted in the election this time.

“We will guard voting centres and will create a congenial atmosphere so that people can cast vote smoothly,” the BNP candidate said.

There are 13 mayoral candidates—six in the DNCC and seven in the DSCC—in the election race.

Around 58 lakh people—3,035,621 in Dhaka North and 2,767,488 in Dhaka South City Corporations—will exercise their rights by using Electronic Voting Machines.