Staff Correspondent

BNP senior leader Dr Abdul Moyeen Khan on Wednesday said BNP never told that they won’t join election, rather they said they won’t participate in ‘staged, one-sided, farce and deceptive’ polls under the current regime.

“The forthcoming upazila polls will not be very different from the previous elections. So, there is no possibility of BNP to contest the upazila polls,” he said after visiting Jubo Dal central committee’s former vice-president SM Jahangir at his Uttara residence. SM Jahangir Uttara residence recently freed from jail.

“Awami League’s decision not to allow party symbol in upazila polls has proved that AL itself acknowledges that the people of the country have rejected the ‘boat’ symbol. Because, AL drowned boat themselves fearing defeat in upazila polls”, he said.

Moyeen Khan, a BNP standing committee member, said,” We want a free, fair and participatory polls. BNP had formed government several times by winning polls with people mandate. We don’t believe in ruling people but doing politics to serve them.”

The government will decide whether they will give back people the right to vote or not, he said.

Replying to a question about the outcomes of BNP’s movement, Dr Moyeen said, “If there were no outcomes of BNP’s struggle, why 95 per cent people boycotted the January 7 dummy election”

AL is doing politics to stay in ower while BNP to serve people. BNP never thinks of grabbing power following illegal way which AL did, he added.

BNP believes in peaceful and structural politics, said Dr Moyeen further adding that they requested people of the country not to cat vote on January 7 election and they did that by boycotting the farce, staged and one-sided dummy election.

There is no second example across the world where one lakh cases were filed against 50 lakh accused for their political belief, he said. “We know few autocratic countries where the suppression of oppositions is not worse than Bangladesh,” he said.