As many as 120 BNP candidates have filed reports detailing ‘irregularities’ during the Dec 30 national election to the party headquarters, said sources.

The candidates have provided a list of activists who were arrested and died or sustained injuring during the polls time violence.

Their reports also include videos and written accounts, detailing ‘irregularities’ on voting day and the night before.

On Jan 3, the paddy sheaf candidates were sent a letter, signed by its Senior Joint Secretary General Ruhul Kabir Rizvi, asking them to submit a report on polls irregularities to the Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir within seven days.

The letter asked details of irregularities in eight categories with documented reports of attacks on the BNP activists, photos of properties damaged, vote rigging and violence which took place in the candidates’ constituencies.

A total of 120 paddy sheaf candidates have so far filed their reports until Jan 10, when the deadline expired.

“So far 120 candidates submitted their reports. Many of the candidates received the letter late as those were sent through the postal services. We are hoping that they will file their reports within a couple of days,” Rizvi told Bangla Tribune.

BNP sources say the party plans to prepare a final report with information gathered from their candidates and compile the video contents into a video info-graphic which will be presented before the media and foreign diplomats.

Other domestic and international organizations will also be briefed, they added.

According to the sources, BNP has already decided that its candidates will lodge cases with the electoral tribunal over alleged polls rigging and irregularities.

When asked on the matter, BNP’s policymaking National Standing Committee member Nazrul Islam Khan told Bangla Tribune, “Let us receive all the reports first. We will decide later what to do with those.”

However, requesting to go unnamed, a member of BNP’s foreign affairs committee said, “Some of those contents have already been shared with Dhaka-based diplomats.”

“Once all the reports are received, the diplomats will be briefed again,” he added. 

In the Dec 30 polls, 281 candidates contested with BNP’s polls logo with 256 core BNP candidates and the rest from allies and the Jatiya Oikya Front.

Only seven among the 281 paddy sheaf candidates won in the 11th parliamentary election which saw an unprecedented landslide victory for the ruling Awami League.