Bangladesh News

Awami League (AL) during its formal dialogue with the government on July 3 will urge the authorities not to hold the upazila parishad elections before the parliamentary polls.

The party has already started holding talks with its allies in the 14-party combine for taking a common stand in this regard.

The AL Central Working Committee sits today at party president Sheikh Hasina’s political office in Dhanmondi to finalise their stand in the dialogue.

“Awami League will take a firm stand on the issues of complete lifting of the state of emergency ahead of the local government elections, not holding upazila polls before the parliamentary elections and postponement of delimitation of electoral constituencies, among others,” AL Acting General Secretary Syed Ashraful Islam said.

He was talking to the reporters after a meeting with Workers’ Party of Bangladesh at party acting President Zillur Rahman’s Gulshan residence in the capital.

Ashraf said the two parties have reached a consensus that the upazila parishad elections will have to be held after the national election.

AL today sits with Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal (Inu) at 11:00am, Samyabadi Dal at 12:00noon, and Ganotantri Party at 1:00pm.

Tomorrow, the party will hold meeting with National Awami Party (Mozaffar) at 11:00am, Gano Azadi League at 12:00noon and Communist Kendra at 1:00pm.

All the bilateral meetings will be held at Zillur Rahman’s residence.

The government will have to face problems if it sticks to its decision to hold upazila polls before the national election, Workers’ Party General Secretary Bimal Biswas told reporters.

Ashraf said they will take part in the four city corporation and nine municipality elections as a test case to assess the government’s performance and see how the national identity cards are used.

He also observed that holding elections to local government bodies and to 465 upazilas are not same.

AL will nominate candidates for the city corporation and municipality elections scheduled for August 4 from the components in the 14-party, all secular democratic political parties and pro-liberation war forces, solely on the recommendations of the party’s grassroots level leaders, Ashraf said.

The central committee would intervene only if any dispute over the candidature arises and would select the best candidate through discussion and negotiation, he added.

Replying to a query, Ashraf categorically said that AL and its allies would not take part in the national and upazila elections if the state of emergency is not lifted.

Saying that the government has been moving away from its main goal of holding parliamentary polls first, Bimal Biswas observed that the national election would be hampered if the upazila elections are held before it.