Bangladesh Goes To Polls Today Amid Poll Violence, Oppn’s Boycott Call: Top Points

Neigbouring Bangladesh will undergo its 12th national election today to select 300 lawmakers to its Parliament amid boycott call by the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party and pre poll violence. At least 14 polling centres and two schools in 10 districts were torched in various parts of the country between Friday evening and early Saturday. 

A passenger train was also set on fire by miscreants on Friday killing four people.

The Sunday polls are also being called as contest between ruling Awami League candidates and Awami League independents as out of the total 1,970 candidates in the fray, 747 Independents have filed their nomination with majority of them being from AL. 

• Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League is contesting on 266 seats as it seeks to remain in the office for a consecutive fourth term, leaving the remaining seats for its alliance partners. Boycott calls by opposition BNP — which maintains that no election can be free and fair under the AL government — and around 14 like-minded parties has made the prospects of Hasina’s win stronger. 
• Calling out the Hasina dispensation as a “fascist government”, the BNP has enforced a nationwide hartal and called upon voters to shun the shun the election. 
• Main opposition on Bangladesh’s Parliament, Jatiyo Party that was formed by military dictator HM Ershad and now led by his brother GM Quader, however, remains in the race, as per The Daily Star report. 
• But of the 265 candidates it has fielded, at least 225 have pulled out themselves, mostly unofficially, terming the race “one-sided and staged”.
• The poll violence and boycott call by the opposition will pose a challenge for the Hasina government to ensure a goof voter turnout, which is likely to remain low according to Bangladeshi media. The ruling Awami League has, however, said that a good number of voters will go to the polling centres in some 179 seats, which are mostly outside Dhaka, according to a Dhaka Tribune report. 
• In the run up to the Sunday polls, the South Asian country witnesses a series of violence between Friday and Saturday as miscreants set fire to a passneger train and several polling stations across the country. 
• A passenger train was set ablaze by miscreants in Dhaka’s Gopibagh on Friday night killing at least four people. Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) Additional Commissioner (Crime and Operations) Mahid Uddin claimed that the attack on Benapole Express was planned, as per a Dhaka Tribune report.
• According to another Dhaka Tribune report, 14 polling stations were torched on Friday and Saturday , however, no casualties were reported from the latest arson attack.
• The attack on polling stations took place in Lalmonirhat,Feni, Rajshahi, Moulvibazar, Habiganj, Gazipur, Chittagong, Mymensingh, Patuakhali, Sherpur, Khulna, Sunamganj