‘Let the dead not vote’ — Opposition BNP says Bangladesh polls ‘rigged in favour of ruling Awami League’

BNP has said ‘false votes should not be cast in the name of the dead like in previous polls’. Party is also distributing pamphlets asking citizens not to vote in Sunday’s national elections.

Supporters of Bangladesh Nationalist Party join in a rally at Naya Paltan area in Dhaka | Photo: Reuters

New Delhi: Bangladesh’s principal opposition party, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), wants “the dead to not rise from their graves and cast votes” in Sunday’s national elections in the country.

Leaders from the Khulna division of the party reportedly said that in previous elections, the dead were shown to be alive and votes were cast in their name, and that the dead should be respected and such travesty should not be repeated in this election.

Leaders of the party took a symbolic oath for the same during a visit to Tutpara graveyard in Khulna Wednesday, Dhaka Tribune reported.

The event was attended by metropolitan BNP leaders Sam Abdur Rahman, Sher Alam, Badrul Anam Khan, Masud Parvez, Sheikh Sadi, Chowdhury Hasanur Rashid, and Md. Zahid Hossain, among others.

The BNP has undertaken a mass campaign on the streets to exhort citizens to boycott the national polls which the party alleges will be rigged in favour of the ruling Awami League.

BNP leaders and cadre have been out on the streets distributing leaflets that list the Bangladesh government’s “many failures”. The allegations include corruption, inflation, attacks on opposition leaders and stifling of free speech.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Hasina has said she wants Sunday’s national election to be free, fair and neutral, setting a milestone in the country’s democratic history.

“People will cast votes for their favourite candidates and make them victorious. That is our target,” she said, while delivering her introductory speech through videoconference from the Awami League office of Dhaka district.

Dhaka-based political analysts ThePrint spoke to said the pamphlet distribution may prove to be a better strategy for the BNP than violent protests on the streets.

“While coming to work, I saw an autorickshaw driver reading a BNP pamphlet,” Dhaka-based journalist Zia Chowdhury told ThePrint.

He added: “The BNP is not in a situation to carry on a battle against the government on the streets. Thousands of its leaders and cadres are either in jail or absconding. The party may actually grab some attention by distributing pamphlets on the streets.”

The largest Islamist political party in the neighbouring country, Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami, and other like-minded opposition parties, have also reportedly decided to align their poll campaigns with the BNP.

The pamphlet distribution drive currently being carried out by the BNP is in stark contrast to last October’s violent protests, as there has been no news of violence yet.

The opposition party found itself in troubled waters earlier this week, however, when about 19 survivors of “arson attacks” in Bangladesh held a rally in front of the National Museum in Dhaka Wednesday, demanding justice and blaming the BNP and Jamaat for their ordeal.

Protest through leaflets 

The leaflets allege that the Awami League government under Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina would enact a farce on 7 January in the name of a national election, only to stay on in power.

They claim the government has ignored all demands for a free, fair and participatory election and will allow other political parties to win a few seats so that the allegations of a rigged election are kept at bay.

The BNP has in the leaflets asked citizens to boycott the elections by not coming out to vote Sunday and to stop paying taxes to the government, as well as limit engagement with banks, alleging that the government uses banks for its financial malpractices.

One of the leaflets distributed by BNP.

The party has also called upon election agents to desist from doing their duties Sunday, and has asked opposition leaders and workers who have been “framed in false cases” to stop responding to court summons.

‘BNP, Jamaat guilty of arson’

Meanwhile, The Dhaka Tribune reported earlier this week that survivors of alleged arson attacks in Bangladesh in the past few years have claimed that while international bodies like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch and the international media, have been vocal about the arrest of BNP activists for alleged arson, they have remained silent on the sufferings of the victims of these alleged attacks.

Runi Begum, mother of a victim of a “2013 arson attack” in Dhaka’s Shahbagh, said her son was not involved in politics and yet he became a victim. He had come to Dhaka from Madaripur’s Shibchar and never returned home.

“BNP-Jamaat supporters burned my son alive on a bus. I request Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to ensure punishment for those who burned my son and their instigators,” the Dhaka Tribune quoted her as saying.

The survivors reportedly alleged that whether it was the period between 2013 and 2015, or October 2023, it was the BNP-Jamaat combine that was responsible for “arson attacks”.

Violent clashes that resulted in several deaths, had marred “peaceful protests” called by the BNP at the end of October 2023.

Videos purportedly showing BNP cadres on the rampage in several districts of Bangladesh were telecast by news channels. In one such video, an ambulance was seen being attacked by a mob as it tried to pass through a violent street demonstration.

The Awami League and the BNP have blamed each other for the protests turning violent.

(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)