BNP mulling new strategy for Gazipur city polls after Khulna defeat

Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir has said the BNP is considering new strategy for Gazipur city polls in light of the ruling Awami League’s ‘strategy of rigging votes’ in Khulna civic election.

The secretary general spoke to some journalists about the party’s position on city corporation elections at the BNP headquarters in Dhaka on Wednesday.

The Election Commission announced the schedule for the elections to Gazipur and Khulna city corporations with May 15 as the voting day but the court delayed the balloting in Gazipur, which will now be hold on June 26.

In Khulna mayor election on Tuesday, the Awami League’s Talukdar Abdul Khalek defeated BNP candidate Nazrul Islam Manju by a margin of around 66,000 votes.

Mirza Fakhrul accused the government of cheating the people of Khulna “by depriving them of their voting rights”.

“Of course we will think afresh about the Gazipur polls. We will adopt a new strategy or take fresh decisions,” he added. 

He said they would draw up the new strategy after deliberations at all levels of the party.

“There is no doubt that the Khulna polls were an ‘eye opener’,” the BNP leader said.

He also said they were not thinking about staying away from Gazipur polls.

“What we are saying from our experience is that it is impossible for this EC to hold fair polls with the current government in power,” he said.

About the Khulna city polls, Mirza Fakhrul said the government took a ‘new strategy to rig elections there’.

“On the face of it, it appeared fine, peaceful, but everything was turned inside out.

“How did they do it? They created panic and terror,” the BNP secretary general claimed.

He also said their party aspirant would have won by a margin of 100,000 if the polls were fair.