Dhaka: Bangladesh Nationalist Party has decided to form a central monitoring cell and seven divisional committees to supervise the 30-December municipal elections and assist the party’s candidates to carry out electioneering. 

The decision was taken at a meeting of the BNP standing committee at BNP chairperson’s Gulshan office on Thursday night.

The standing committee also urged the Election Commission and law enforcers to play a neutral in the interest of a fair and credible election.

After the meeting, BNP acting secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir briefed reporters about its outcome.

‘The standing committee has decided to constitute a central election monitoring cell to properly oversee the municipal polls. Besides, seven monitoring teams will also be formed one each in the seven divisions in this regard,’ he said.

The BNP leader said they will also ask their every district and upazila committee to properly monitor the elections and carry out electioneering.

Fakhrul said the BNP policymakers voiced deep concern that over 5,000 opposition leaders and activists have been arrested over the last one month. ‘The wholesale arrest of the BNP leaders and activists is still going on. ‘It should be stopped immediately. Otherwise, there’ll be no level-playing field.’

He said the meeting demanded the government release the BNP leaders and activists who were arrested in political cases.

Fakhrul said the BNP standing committee members denounced the Election Commission’s decision of making the deputy commissioners, additional deputy commissioners and UNOs as returning officers in some municipalities though there was no shortage of Election Commission officials to carry out this duty.

‘As the public administration is highly politicised by the government, people have an apprehension that the government officials have been made returning officers with a plan to rig the voting. This fear was proved correct during the scrutiny of the nomination papers.’

BNP standing committee member Moudud Ahmed, Lt Gen (retd) Mahbubur Rahman, ASM Hannan Shah, Barrister Jamiruddin Sircar, Begum Sarwari Rahman, Dr Abdul Moyeen Khan, Gayeshwar Chandra Roy and BNP acting secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir were present.

A BNP standing committee member, wishing anonymity said, their meeting also decided not to boycott the municipal polls under any circumstances.