Dhaka: BNP senior leader Abdul Moyeen Khan on Wednesday expressed his fear that the ruling party will ‘grab’ nearly 700 chairman posts out of 736 in the first phase of the Union Council polls by using the police and the administration.

‘The government, we think, will snatch the election results of some 700 UC chairman posts out of 736 the way it did in the recently held municipal elections,’ he said.

Moyeen, a BNP standing committee member, came up with the remarks while talking to reporters after meeting with Chief Election Commissioner Kazi Rakibuddin Ahmad at the EC Secretariat.

‘It has become a tradition that the government occupies the election field using the government officials and law enforcement agencies, and those who can take control over the field flexing muscle get elected,’ he observed.

Moyeen Khan said they expressed their concern to the Election Commission that if this tradition continues, the UC election results will not be different from the ones held in municipalities. ‘If this salutation continues, we can guess what will be result in the UC election,’ he added.

The BNP leader alleged that the EC cannot come out of the clutch of the government, no matter what efforts it is making. The government continues to control the EC illegally by public officials, though it is a constitutional and independent body.’

A three-member BNP delegation, led by Moyeen Khan, had a nearly 90-minute meeting with the CEC ahead of first phase of the UC polls scheduled to be held on 22 March.