Fakhrul wants early polls

BNP spokesman Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir on Wednesday urged the government to immediately hold an inclusive national election to restore democracy.”What ever has happened, happened… let’s take the country forward by holding a free, fair and credible election under a neutral administration,” he said.Fakhrul, the BNP acting secretary general, was addressing a discussion at the national press club, marking the 35th anniversary of the death of Moshiur Rahman Jadu Maih.He alleged that the Awami League-led government is steering the country to the one party rule like that of 1975 by undermining democracy through the ‘voter-less farcical’ election on Jan. 5.Fakhrul said the ruling party men are capturing the polling stations like grabbing chars. “They’re snatching people’s voting rights by resorting to terrorism and vote fraud.”The BNP leader came down hard on the election commission for what he said its subservient role and inaction on punishing the errant ruling party-backed candidates and their supporters.”The government has constituted such an Election Commission which is working only to ensure victory of the ruling party-backed candidates by any means. They’re not taking any action against those who are grabbing polling stations and snatching ballots as they don’t see or heard anything,” he added.The BNP spokesman criticised Finance Minister AMA Muhith for his move to collect Tk 100 crore from the private sector for the upcoming ICC T20 World Cup and said the government is pampering the corrupt people by resorting to extortion.Refereeing to a scuffle between a group of journalists and lawyers at the High Court, Fakhrul regretted the incident. “Why such incident has taken place. It’s exposed that the democracy is in crisis in the country. The government is responsible for it.”He lamented that the morality of the nation has broken down as the government has destroyed all the institutions through politicisation. They must be put on dock for it one day.”The BNP leader urged the party men to get united for waging a strong movement to protect the country and save its people from the misrule of the current ‘repressive’ government.