The BNP will be contesting the upcoming local government polls, but it has decided to do so without the party’s electoral symbol ‘paddy sheaf.’
“Our decision is that those BNP activists or leaders who were union parishad chairmen can contest the polls but in that case we won’t be allocating symbols,” Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir told the media on Friday (Jul 5).
The announcement came after a meeting of the party’s highest policymaking forum National Standing Committee which started at 4 pm earlier in the day.
“We still believe that allocation of party symbols for local government polls should be lifted,” he said.
Saying that the entire schedule for the polls hasn’t yet been announced, he added, “We has said earlier that it won’t be fit for Bangladesh to allocate symbols for union parishad polls. This will create several problems politically.”
Speaking on the daylight killing of Rifat Sharif and the ‘shootout’ of his alleged killer Nayan Bond, he said that it was a move to hide the real perpetrators who encouraged the killing in the first place.
Terming Nayan’s death as extrajudicial killing, he said, “A few days ago an Ain o Shalish Kendra report said that in the last six months 438 people have been killed in cross-fires and extrajudicial killings.”
On the nine BNP men given death penalty over the attack on Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s train while she was the leader of opposition, he said, that the verdict was politically motivated.
He said that those who have been sentenced will be given full support from the party.