Of the elected MP’s of the eleventh parliamentary elections, 81.87 (244 persons) have wealth above Tk one crore, informed civil society governance body, SHUJAN in a press conference on Sunday, 6 January.
In a written statement, SHUJAN’s central coordinator, Dilip Kumar Sarkar, said: “though it was stated in the RPO that candidate panel would be formed in wards, upazilas and respective constituencies, in reality, it was not followed.
Of the MP’s, 80.87 have university graduate and postgraduate degrees.
Stating the rise of politicians from business background, he said: “about 61.7 per cent of the elected are business people with 12.75 in the legal professions.”
Form the elected, 21 have cases against them.
Of the elected, only 40 per cent are loan takers.
The statement also stated that the election time atmosphere was not conducive and was marked by violence, intimidation, harassment, unnecessary arrests and impediments to publicity campaigns.
“There are accusations that many Oikya Front candidates were under siege in their homes.”
The statement included election irregularities like exhaustion of ballot papers by 11 in the morning, abnormal vote casting in several centres, forced votes etc.
SHUJAN’s secretary, Dr. Badiul Alam mazumdar, says: “we work on the election process and a lot of questions have been raised already on the recently concluded polls which the EC must investigate.”