Another black feather was added to the body of the Election Commission. The feather was added on March 21 by setting three new EC records in the election of three vacant parliamentary seats.
The three records of the EC are: 1. This is the first time an officer in charge of an election and a member of the police force have been on duty since the mask; 2. This is the first time in any parliamentary election that hand sanitizers and tissues have been provided for voters to disinfect their hands at polling stations. This is the first time in Bangladesh that a parliamentary seat (Dhaka-10) has 5.26 percent or the lowest vote cast.
However, due to the coronovirus, the voters did not come to the polling station due to the EVM voting and many people have doubted about this quarter of 5 percent of the votes. With so few votes cast, a Supreme Court lawyer has filed a writ petition seeking re-election, annulling the election results. The commission has done a reprehensible job by stubbornly choosing this among the coronoviruses.
Of note, the EC proved by selecting three parliamentary seats in the coronovirus infection, that they deserve to be world champions in a stubborn competition. Because in the midst of coronovirus infection, when different countries around the world are locking down and shutting down their cities, Bangladesh also confirmed the news of the virus on March 7. In such a difficult time, the EC has selected the vacant seats of Dhaka-10, Gaibandha-3 and Bagerhat-4 Jatiya Sangsad on March 21 ignoring the requests of civil society, countrymen and voters. That's right, the election schedule was announced earlier; But the EC should have been alerted to the news of the corona outbreak in the country from the first week of March; But they did not. The explanation of the EC Secretary in this regard is not acceptable.
He said the EC had not received any complaints from candidates to stop the election. Moreover, the candidates have almost finished their election campaigns. If the election is stopped in this situation, they will suffer financial loss. In other words, the explanation of the EC secretary proved that the money of some candidates is more valuable to the EC. The value of the lives of millions of voters is not important. At a time when ordinary people are supposed to stay at home, to maintain social distance, the EC stubbornly tried to select these three.
To select the constitutional responsibility of the EC. The EC will select. There is no problem. But if these three elections were held a few days later, would the country have become obsolete? Parliament would be ineffective? Would the constitution have been violated? Didn't the election have a chance to do later? Of course there were opportunities. The constitution also provides such opportunities. 123 of the Constitution
(4) There would be no deviation from the law if the election was held within 90 days after the EC prescribed 90 days due to natural calamity as per paragraph. But the EC secretary did not say that. They did not consider the coronavirus a disaster. The lives of the voters were not valued by them. They have disregarded coronavirus.
Now if any campaigner or voter in these three constituencies is affected by Corona, it is necessary to understand whether he was infected due to not being able to maintain social distance due to the election. And if that is the case, the responsibility will fall on the Election Commission. Needless to say, candidates and activists had to campaign as the EC did not stop the election. And social distance cannot be maintained while campaigning.
It cannot be said in advance that anyone in Dhaka-10, Gaibandha-3 and Bagerhat-4 areas may be affected by corona. We sincerely do not want that. We want all the people of Bangladesh to be tax free. Stay healthy. But in the three constituencies mentioned above, within two or two and a half weeks from the 21st, if any leader or voter is attacked by Corona, there will be an opportunity to blame the EC. Because despite the opportunity to postpone the election, they have to give an acceptable explanation as to why the EC stubbornly chose a bad time and added a black feather to its body.
We do not know if the EC had any unannounced agreement with the government to hold this election. Therefore, the government cannot be blamed in this regard. Because the leaders of the ruling party have always said about this issue, ‘The Election Commission is independent. They will do whatever they think is best about not being selected. We will not interfere in the work of the commission. '
Of course, the number of black feathers on this commission is not one. Many more black feathers have been attached to his body by the EC since he came into charge in 2016. The main challenge before the Commission after coming to power was to conduct the Eleventh Parliamentary Election with transparency; But the CEC held talks with US Ambassador Marsha Bernikat and British High Commissioner Alison Blake on May 31 and June 6, 2016, respectively, before discussing the election with its main client political parties.
In other words, he gave more importance to the spectators or observers than the referees and players. Later, most of the political parties, civil society and voters, stubbornly against the will of the parliamentary elections in 6 constituencies in EVMs created the situation in Lezgobar. However, two and a half months after taking office, and once again in the roadmap for the Eleventh Parliamentary Election, the Commission promised not to use EVMs in the Parliamentary elections, but the EC did not keep that promise. Thus the EC adds one black feather after another to its body. But the EC's brightest black feather is its inability to resist the unprecedented night vote in the Eleventh Parliamentary Election. Failing to resist rigging in the day-to-day voting, the EC-day election turned the EC election researchers into a hotbed of academic research.
As a result 60.80 percent casting rate is manufactured. Seeing the role of the administration and the police in that election, the veteran BCL leader Noor Alam Siddiqui said, "The administration has taken the field exclusively in favor of the ruling party." The police administration is now the most loyal cadre of the Awami League. 'It is their engineering that got 100 percent votes in 213 polling stations in this election.
90 percent or more votes were cast in 9,320 centers. As a result, the black feather obtained by the EC by electing this parliament was the most shiny. In birds, such feathers are not visible on the body of any bird other than just a crow or a crow. It has been written before about the negativity of the Eleventh Parliamentary Election. People are aware of what happened in the name of voting. How did the EC supporters (?) Destroy the privacy of the voters in the cloth part in the name of voting in EVM. The same thing happened again in the questionable quarter of 5 percent of the Dhaka-10 constituency elections held in the Corona transition.
Come to another context. Personally I have been to America three times. For the first time in six states of the country at the invitation of the US government. The next two were in Boston, Massachusetts. I will highlight a part of the first tour here due to its relevance. In 2002, five teachers from four public universities joined the International Visitor Program at the invitation of the State Department in Washington DC, USA.
We participate in various programs in Washington, South Carolina, New Mexico, Illinois, Philadelphia, and New York over a three-week period. As part of this program, we are in Stirling City, a small town in Illinois, from September 22 to 25. Our first of these four days was a discussion with the Mayor of Stalling and Rock Falls City. When we arrived at the mayor's office in the morning, we were greeted with a small gift. The discussion started after exchanging greetings.
I want to know from the mayor how he came to the post of mayor. The mayor said he was elected mayor by popular vote. I ask, what percentage of votes were cast in the election in which he was elected mayor? With a smiling face, he said, "Around twenty-five percent."
This time I want to know what percentage of the votes he got. As far as I can remember, he said 36 or 40 percent. Then I said sadly, alas! Did we come to America to see this democracy? You are sitting in the mayor's chair with the support of 10 percent of the people in your area. 90 percent of the people did not support you. The mayor said in a dreamy manner, "Look, our people do not want to come to vote." I said, what initiative did you take to bring them to the polls? "We do a lot for that," he said. Voters went to their homes and knocked on the door. Encourage them to vote.
I distribute leaflets among them. Even then they don’t want to come to the polls. I then proudly described the local government elections in Bangladesh. I asked how people participate in the Union and Upazila Parishad elections like a festival. How 80 or 75 percent of the vote is cast. How thousands of people participated in the campaign procession-meeting. The mayor listened with fascination. Then I said, we will not give the same idea to the students as we used to give to the students before we read American Democracy in class. This time we will change our lecture sheet to highlight these weaknesses of your democracy.
I'm glad I'm home now for fear of a corona infection. There is no desire to go abroad. Especially in the coming days there are no plans to go to America. If the situation had been normal, and if I had landed at Chicago Airport again and gone to the city of Sterling, and if unfortunately I had met that mayor, what would have happened? If he had told me about the questionable 5 percent casting rate for the Dhaka-10 parliamentary elections, what would have happened to your democracy! Last time you showed me a different picture. What would my condition be like then? Where would I hide my face in shame?