The last city poll of Narayanganj was praised by almost all quarters as a symbol of peaceful, participatory and fair election held under the Nurul Huda Commission.
Newly elected mayor, Selina Hayat Ivy, however mildly accused EVM of delay in vote casting, though her opponent Taimur Alam Khondoker, a former BNP leader who was expelled from his party for participating in this city election defying party stand not to go for voting under the incumbent authority, termed EVM a machine of vote robbing.
According to Taimur, the Narayanganj City Election was, in fact, manufactured and votes were rigged through EVM. It is obvious that there has been a change in modus operandi of election process, particularly in vote casting, controlled mechanically in Narayanganj City Corporation (NCC) Election' 2022.
Even a bird's eye view can unfold that the ruling party had a 3-fold goal to attain or gain from the Narayanganj poll viz (a) to make it believable to the public-eye or for commoners' consumption that the voting exercise through EVM is fair, free and 'no violence' was occurred and at the top of all, the public administration was not inclined to or involved in it, (b) to prove that the Nurul Huda and company was efficient, capable and outwardly impartial in its conducts in holding the poll and therefore, NCC poll gave it (Nurul Huda Commission) a face-uplift aiming to ward-off its hugely torn-face-value at the departure time, and (c) most importantly, to test the suitability or effectiveness of one of its (government's) election machination tools to be used in 2023 national polls inter alia to draw the line of operation(s) that has been designed or outlined and engineered for 2023 exercise to hold on to the power.
'Delay' or 'robbing' or 'rigging' whatever we say to define the use of EVM in Narayanganj city election that must not decide or be the last line to draw a conclusion that the election held on 16 January'2022 in Narayanganj was 'questionable' or 'unfair' only on account of using EVMs. Basically, it was a manufactured, engineered, manipulated election where EVM was put on sole focus to hide other rigging processes, in fact, which are too dangerous than EVM itself. The single cause that voting is a slow process through EVM is not the only prime factor to go against EVM.
In reality, voting was made slow to rob the people's will as per the dictate of some influential quarters. Khondoker Taimur, who termed EVM a tool of vote robbing, was also made a part, willingly or unwillingly, of the process that actually led him solely to focus on election manipulation through EVM. The other rigging processes got out of focus, but the use of EVM, more so the government election engineering technique successfully attained legality as EVM was put to be the post-poll focal point of discussion as the reason of robbing people's franchises.
It has to be admitted that EVM is an offline process, so virtually no hacking is possible by controlling the machines from other remote zones.
The Nrayanganj City Corporation (NCC) election was a large scale election agenda at the time of departure of Nurul Huda Election Commission. They, therefore, tried hard to make it a seemingly free, fair, violence-free and impartial election. But before formation of a new Election Commission, it was more obvious that the government needed to prove the efficacy of EVM which is supposed to be used on whole scale in the next nation election to be held in 2023.
Thus, government used the Nurul Huda Commission as the best and easy medium to prove that EVM is an essential voting tool for holding a free, fair and violence-free election. The Narayanganj exercise was entirely aimed to make EVM in the present use believable in public eye.
The ruling party needs 'win' in the 2023 National Election, and how it can be possible through EVM has been rehearsed in the city election of Narayanganj. Though it was a local government election, but two major causes led the government to manipulate the election. They were --- to confirm the victory of 'Boat' making the election outwardly 'Violence Free' in the public eye and also to soothe the intra-party fractional clash of Narayanganj Unit Awami League through electing some muscle-men as councilors. These councilors have no legally known source of income but they have amassed huge money earned through extortions and such other unlawful ways.
This time they bore all the election expenses for confirming the win of 'Boat'. Black money and muscle power silently dominated the whole election exercise through buying votes of poor floating citizens and on the other hand, creating a fear psychic among the general mass to abstain from voting.
Therefore, the major concerns of the government in the NCC Election' 2022 were - victory of 'Boat' at any cost with minimum violence in the election and put down the images of the party rebels with assured-win of some chosen councilors. Awami League did it successfully.
Now the question is: How the government was able to mitigate its 'concerns' regarding Narayanganj city election. What tools were used to ensure the win or what were the mechanisms of election engineering that were applied by the government in NCC election 2022?
On 05 February Mr. Chunnu said, "Even with angels in the Election Commission, good elections are not possible (Manobjamin, 06 February Edition)". He explained the cause and said, 'because according to the existing law, the executive department and the police are supposed to follow the instructions of the Election Commission during the election, but they do not listen to the Election Commission, they loyally listen to the government'.
Yes, this is the fact that the election officials, executive department and law enforcing department of the state were under the government control to help manipulate the NCC election along with some ruling party central leaders including the concerned ruling party leaders of IT-related affairs and some EVM experts included too. Some of them were found in the voting centers in the disguise of IT experts in the plea of repairing EVM if any technical guilt occurs. Along with the intelligence officials, they were in the presiding officers' room in almost every voting center from 9 am to the last till the declaration of the vote results. They had similar cards like that of the vote officials (Assistant Presiding Officers and Presiding Officers) in the excuse to operate the EVMs and to repair those if necessary.
Mayor Ivy (then sitting and currently duly installed on the basis of the poll in discussion) rightly said, vote casting was really 'too slow'. Even at 3 pm, the casting rate was only (+/-) 25 percent as monitored by the other independent observers. But the NCC poll result jumpingly showed that the percentage of vote casting was 50 plus percent. Then who were those 'Ghosts' who made it possible to increase the number of voter presence in that election? This is the most vital unsolved puzzle till now which needs to be resolved at least for the sake of a democratic city government of a not so big city. At the top of all, this puzzle must be unboxed to make democracy workable in our national political life.
Actually, our election officials i.e. polling officers, assistant presiding officers or presiding officers were not apt enough in operating EVMs. They are not IT experts. They were mainly drawn from amongst the teachers and bankers with little EVM experience. They needed help of the so-called IT experts sitting with them. The disguised experts were 'men' assigned mainly from the intelligence services.
The Narayanganj City Election was at its face-value 'violence free' and apparently 'not contaminated' and bore an 'impartial' mark. Our intelligence officials, Rab officials and police forces were active enough to make the elections 'peaceful' in the public eye, and they did it successfully as the government so wished. Our election officials also did the same as per government concern to ensure the 'win' for some selected symbols.
The writer was a councilor
candidate in NCC poll.
