Bangladesh\u2019s main opposition BNP, which boycotted Sunday\u2019s general elections swept by Sheikh Hasina\u2019s party, on Monday demanded the cancellation of the \u201cdummy election\u201d and the prime minister\u2019s resignation, questioning the accuracy of the voter turnout. To mobilise public support for their demands, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party announced a two-day mass contact programme on Tuesday and Wednesday.<\/p>\n
The party also renewed its demand for a fresh election under a non-party polls-time government to establish a legitimate and accountable government. Hasina\u2019s Awami League party won 223 seats in the 300-seat Parliament. Election was held for 299 seats The election to one seat will be held later due to the death of a candidate. The main opposition in Parliament, the Jatiya Party, got 11 seats, Bangladesh Kallyan party won in one constituency while independent candidates came out victorious in 62 seats.<\/p>\n
Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal and the Workers Party of Bangladesh won one seat each. Bangladesh\u2019s Election Commission on Monday said 41.8 per cent of the voters turned out to cast their votes. \u201cAccording to the final count, the figure stands at 41.8 per cent,\u201d Chief Election Commissioner Kazi Habibul Awal told a news briefing at his office, adding if anyone doubts the number \u201cyou are most welcome to challenge it\u201d.<\/p>\n
The BNP boycotted the elections and observed a strike on Sunday. Nazrul Islam Khan, another BNP standing committee member, said their party wanted to establish a government elected by people\u2019s vote and accountable to them. \u201cA free and fair election is necessary for that, and that didn\u2019t happen yesterday. So, people have turned down this election. Everyone is saying the voter turnout which was shown was fake,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, BNP and other political parties who are on a movement for the restoration of democracy demand the immediate cancellation of the dummy election of January 7, resignation of Sheikh Hasina and formation of a polls-time non-party neutral government for holding a national election,\u201d Nazrul said. He also said people\u2019s ownership of the state must be restored and all enforced disappearance, killing, and ghost cases must be stopped and people will have to be protected from his repressive regime.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese are now people\u2019s demands. We congratulate and thank people as they made sacrifices in the face of various pressures and allurements and foiled the government\u2019s evil efforts to show a huge turnout by taking them to the voting centres. BNP Standing Committee member Abdul Moyeen Khan said the country\u2019s people unilaterally and spontaneously rejected Sunday\u2019s election. On behalf of the parties that called for boycotting the polls, he congratulated the people of the country for turning down the election.<\/p>\n
He also said the government failed to take voters to the polling stations despite various threats and intimidation. \u201cThere was no voting and election on January 7. What happened was vote robbery and vote rigging,\u201d the BNP leader said. The party has been saying no election under the current government would be fair and credible.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Bangladesh\u2019s main opposition BNP, which boycotted Sunday\u2019s general elections swept by Sheikh Hasina\u2019s party, on Monday demanded the cancellation of\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":24249,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[186],"tags":[7566,3499,7565,7563,7571,7570,7568,7572,7569,7574,7567,7564,7573,5637],"class_list":["post-24246","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world","tag-awami-league","tag-bangladesh","tag-bangladesh-elections-2024","tag-bnp","tag-bnp-standing-committee-member-abdul-moyeen-khan","tag-demands","tag-dummy-election","tag-election-boycott","tag-public-support","tag-resignation","tag-sham-election","tag-sheikh-hasina","tag-strike","tag-voter-turnout"],"reading_time":"3 min read","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24246","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24246"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24246\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24249"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24246"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24246"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24246"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}