After Jatiya Oikya Front leaders walked out in the middle of a meeting with the chief election commissioner (CEC) on Tuesday (Dec 25) citing inappropriate behaviour, concerns have emerged over the opposition alliance remaining in the race.
According to insiders, the five-party coalition, with the BNP as its largest member, is divided over the issue.
Hours after the Election Commission incident, leaders of Oikya Front allies joined in an emergency meeting at the BNP chief’s Gulshan offices, but people familiar with the matter said any decision was yet to be taken.
A member of the coalition’s policymaking Steering Committee, who attended the meeting, said that a decision likely to come from a meeting of the top leaders of allies on Thursday (Dec 27), when the Oikya Front is scheduled to hold a public rally at Dhaka’s Suhrawardy Udyan.
Tuesday’s meeting at Gulshan was not attended by some of the key leaders of the alliance, including Krishak Sramik Janata League chief Kader Siddiqui, JSD President ASM Abdur Rab and Nagorik Oikya Convener Mahmudur Rahman Manna.
Several Oikya Front leaders said that the increased obstacles to campaign as well as attack on candidates have led the coalition to consider the move to pull out from the race.
According to them, the coalition hoped that the situation would change from on Monday (Dec 24), when armed forces members were deployed across the country, but at least 25 Oikya Front candidates were attacked, the highest in a single day.
“We will announce a decision on Thursday after a meeting of the top leaders. But until now, we are in the polls race. The CEC behaved like a political activist,” Zafrullah Chowdhury, who leads a pro-BNP professional group and one of the sponsors of the alliance, told Bangla Tribune.
The Oikya Front steering panel member said that the Commission did not respond to any of the allegations they raised during the meeting.
Earlier in the day, BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir told the media at the EC offices, "The fact is that the Election Commission and the government have not created a fair election environment three days ahead of the end of election campaigns.
“There is terrible chaos on the campaign field. Activists are arrested, detained, blocked and attacked. The EC and the government are jointly working to foil the election.”
It seems that the Commission’s attitude was biased and indecorous, he claimed.
According to a senior BNP leader, the situation might deteriorate if the coalition decides to sit out of the polls.
“Besides that the decision boycotting the 2014 election has already left the future of the party and its activists in doldrums. So, pulling out of the race is not an option,” he told Bangla Tribune asking not to be named.
Even if the coalition announces to boycott the election, its aspirants will remain as candidates officially, which means it would not risk the BNP’s registration with the EC.
According to the RPO, a political party’s registration will become automatically invalid if it does not take part in two consecutive national elections.
BNP Vice-Chairman Shamsuzzaman Dudu, however, said that the party will remain in the race “till the end”. “We are not boycotting the election,” he said on Tuesday.
Speaking to Bangla Tribune on Monday (Dec 24), Oikya Front leader Dr Kamal Hossain, however, said, “We will be in the polls race until the end and clinch victory.”