BNP on Sunday said the election has become a mockery as the ruling party men resorted to violence and widespread irregularities, including ballot-stuffing overnight, driving out its polling agents and capturing polling stations across the country. "Ruling party men and police worked hand in hand during this election and this is the death of democracy," BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir told journalists at Syedpur Airport in Nilphamari when he was returning to Dhaka from Thakurgaon after voting ended.
Apart from the ruling party activists, he said police, RAB and BGB members also attacked BNP supporters and drove away their agents from different polling stations across the country.
Earlier, the party had submitted a letter to the Election Commission complaining that its polling agents had been obstructed in 221 constituencies during the election.
"Our polling agents are being intimidated and obstructed while entering voting stations. In some cases, they are being driven out from the polling stations or being arrested," BNP Joint Secretary General Moazzem Hossain Alal, who led the party's delegation to EC, told reporters.
"We have received the information from reliable sources," he said. Alal said they were receiving similar complaints from unconfirmed sources from other constituencies as well. He claimed that the ruling Awami League activists were committing the irregularities with the help of law enforcement agencies.
The BNP submitted a written complaint, signed by its National Election Conducting Committee Chairman Nazrul Islam Khan, to the chief election commissioner.
The party boycotted the 2014 general election and has remained out of office for 10 years. Alal alleged that voters were not being allowed to enter polling stations in many places and women were being asked to vote for Awami League at the voting centres. "The ballot papers were stuffed with the help of law enforcement agencies, polling and administration officials," BNP claimed in its written complaint.
