BNP wants trial of officers who helped rig elections

The BNP has demanded legal trials to bring all administrative officers engaged in ‘vote rigging’ in the three general elections held in the past one-and-a-half decades of Awami League rule to justice.

The political party also recommended that the administration should be reshuffled three months before every election.

A delegation of the BNP Committee of Public Administration Reform Affairs met Public Administration Secretary Mokhlesur Rahman on Sunday to submit a report with the recommendations.

“The BNP has given a report and the government will decide about it,” Mokhlesur said.

BNP reform affairs committee member and former secretary Ismail Jabiullah was part of the delegation.

“On behalf of the BNP, we came up with recommendations to reform the public administration. We drew up a proposal to realise these public aspirations. The administration needs an overhaul. We recommended that those engaged in vote rigging in the 2014, 2018 and 2024 elections should be brought under the law,” Ismail Jabiullah said.

“We recommend that the Awami League accomplices lurking in the administration should be removed immediately. Besides, justice should be upheld for those government employees who faced discrimination.”

The BNP’s recommendations also included making a fresh fit list for deputy commissioners, Jabiullah said.

The administrative officers should be ‘impartial’ he said, adding that officers must remain in the field for the first three months after they are recruited. “We recommended that those who developed a syndicate in the past should be removed.”