DHAKA: Bangladesh’s radical Islamist party Jamaat-e-Islami has alleged that their alliance candidates suffered narrow defeats in the February 12 national elections due to electoral irregularities, including delayed results, missing polling agent signatures, forged endorsements, and pencil-marked tallies in some cases.
Jamaat stated that it is pursuing these alleged electoral irregularities through formal legal channels but refraining from mobilising large-scale field actions at this stage, a recent report mentioned.
“In the post-election political landscape, Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami has adopted several strategies to keep the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) government under pressure. Leading an 11-party electoral alliance, the party has petitioned the Election Commission (EC) for a vote recount in 32 constituencies. Candidates from the alliance have also challenged results in court in at least 13 of these seats,” a report in the Bangladeshi daily Prothom Alo detailed.
“Jamaat has additionally raised questions over the roles of Syeda Rizwana Hasan and Khalilur Rahman, two former advisors to the interim government led by Muhammad Yunus. The party has also called for their questioning and legal accountability,” it added.
In the 13th national parliamentary elections, the BNP won an absolute majority, with 209 seats on its own and a total of 212 in coalition, while Jamaat won 68 seats independently and 77 in alliance.(IANS)
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