BNP briefs diplomats about Dhaka city vote ‘frauds’

BNP on Sunday briefed some foreign diplomats stationed in Dhaka about what it said vote 'frauds' and various 'irregularities' committed by the ruling Awami League in the recently-held elections to Dhaka south and north city corporations.

Diplomats from the European Union and 13 countries, including Australia, Russia, Germany, Turkey, Denmark, Norway and India attended the meeting held at city hotel around 4:00pm.

BNP secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir and party's Dhaka South City Corporation mayoral candidate Ishraque Hossain and Dhaka North City Corporation mayoral runner Tabith Awal also provided the foreign envoys with some documents, including paper-cuttings and photos and videos, in support of their allegations, said a BNP leader who was present at the meeting.

Besides, he said, BNP's foreign affairs committee made a presentation on the election "irregularities, including vote rigging, capturing polling stations' and driving out the party candidates' polling agents by the ruling party activists."

However, no diplomat and senior BNP leaders, except Ishraque, talked to the media over the meeting outcome.

Talking to reporters, Ishraque said their party's foreign affairs team made a presentation before the foreign envoys depicting the "irregularities" happened during the election on February 1.

He said they also responded to various queries by the representatives of different foreign missions stationed in Dhaka.

"We mainly focused on vote frauds, vote rigging and election irregularities. As our development partners, they wanted to know from us about the total electoral process and how the voting was held. We informed them about those issues," the BNP candidate said.

He said they also informed the foreign envoys about how the "votes were rigged, polling stations captured, irregularities took place at different levels and the election results were changed."

Ishraque said they did not make any complaint to the foreign diplomats as they only informed them what they wanted to know from them. "We know there's no point of making any complaint to them. We just gave them information as they'd interest to know about that."

Asked what the diplomats told them in replies, the BNP candidate said they have got speechless and stunned knowing how the elections were 'manipulated' at different levels.

"They've got hurt hearing that journalists and our polling agents were attacked and injured. We also informed them with various statistics how the election results were changed at the dead of night. They've become wordless hearing all those things," Ishraque claimed.

Apart from Fakhrul and two mayoral candidates, BNP standing committee members Amir Khosru Mahmud Chowdhury, Iqbal Hasan Mahmud Tuku and vice-chairman Abdul Awal Mintoo were, among others, present at the meeting.