Photo: Collected
BNP senior leader Dr Abdul Moyeen Khan on Friday (5 January) alleged that the government has taken various unconstitutional, immoral and deceptive moves, including intimidating voters, to show artificial voter turnout in Sunday's (7 January) election.
Speaking at a press conference, the BNP leader called upon the people to boycott the voting in the 'farcical' election, braving what he said all threats and intimidation by the government.
BNP standing committee arranged the press conference on the premises of Moyeen Khan's Gulshan residence, just two days before the voting. It was the first formal in-person press conference of the BNP since its grand rally was foiled in the capital on October 28.
"Criticism and hilarity are going on at home and abroad about the one-sided election of seat sharing and distribution to be held on January 7... the government has not stopped by creating dummy candidates and dummy parties, as they have now turned their attention to forcefully creating dummy voters," Dr Moyeen said.
Alongside BNP and 62 pro-democracy political parties, he said voters of all classes and professions and every conscious citizen of the country have already boycotted and rejected the so-called election.
"Getting desperate to hang onto power, the illegitimate government is trying to show the arrangement of seat distribution as a participatory and inclusive election. So, the Awami League and the identified quarters of the state apparatus have devised a blueprint of the conspiracy," the BNP leader observed.
He alleged that the way the government has resorted to violence to show the presence of artificial voters in a 'meaningless' election, which is being held against the aspirations of the people, is morally anti-people and politically childish.
"The list of all their tricks to show the inflated number of presence of voters is now clear to the international stakeholders...the Awami League and its submissive state apparatus have taken countless unethical, undemocratic, and unconstitutional initiatives to show false and fraudulent voter turnout," Dr Moyeen said.
As part of the move to intimidate voters, he said the MPs of the government are threatening that millions of beneficiaries of the government's social safety net programmes will lose their financial benefits if they do not go to the polling stations.
"At present, about 1.28 crore people are getting various social benefits which is an ongoing process under all governments. Awami League has given instructions to ensure these beneficiaries and their family members go to the polling stations. It is being told that if they do not vote on January 7, their allowances will be cancelled," he said.
Messenger/Sun Yath
