DUCSU votes will be snatched away in broad daylight: Ex-VP Manna

Mahmudur Rahman Manna has warned that votes will be snatched away in the DUCSU polls just as the people were robbed of their votes in the parliamentary polls.

Manna, a former vice-president of the Dhaka University Central Students’ Union, spoke about the elections at a programme of the Nagorik Oikya party he heads now.

The party organised the programme at the Dhaka Reporters Unity to unveil its declaration on Friday, three days before the DUCSU polls.

“I am not doing any criticism. But it won’t be wrong if I say that the DUCSU polls will be held in the same manner the Dec 30 elections were organised,” Manna said.

“A party has foiled expansion of all other student organisations by taking control of the campus and halls while it has been in power for 10 years,” he said in a clear dig at the ruling Awami League and its student affiliate Bangladesh Chhatra League.  

“Vote robbery took place on the night before the Dec 30 elections but here (Dhaka University) they will snatch away votes in broad daylight by flexing their muscle. They may give three of the 19 halls to the others to claim that the election was fair,” he added.       

Manna had been in jail for around two years before being freed on bail by the end of 2016 after he was purportedly heard saying “deaths of some of students in clashes to take back control of Dhaka University halls may strengthen the BNP-led antigovernment movement” in a leaked telephone conversation.

Shahidul Alam, a photographer-activist who also was in jail for months before being released on bail on charges of inciting violence during the student movement for safe roads, also spoke at the programme.

Manna said Shahidul was “deprived of independence” and the people were living in a “state of fear".

SM Akram, an adviser to the Nagirik Oikya, Dhaka University’s Professor Nurul Amin Bepari, who heads a splinter group of the Bikalpadhara Bangladesh, human rights organisation Odhikar’s President and Dhaka University Prof CR Abrar, and Prof Rashed Al Mahmud Titumir, who teaches development studies at the university, among others, spoke at the programme.