No evil force can obstruct polls: Quader

The 12th national parliamentary elections will be held on time as per the constitution, and no evil force will be able to hinder it, General Secretary of the Awami League, Obaidul Quader has said.

"The people of the country are united against any conspiracy to obstruct the election unconstitutionally and illegally," he stated in a media release issued yesterday.

Terming the BNP leaders' remarks over the upcoming polls "ill-intended and provocative", Quader, also the roads transport and bridges minister, said, "The BNP is engaged in a deep-rooted conspiracy to foil the upcoming 12th national parliamentary elections and destroy the electoral environment. They want to make the election and the electoral process questionable by standing against the democratic process as they did in the past."

"Also, they [BNP] want to disrupt the ongoing process of political stability and development of the country," he added.

"In 2014, the BNP burnt and killed hundreds of innocent people through arson attacks across the country with the aim of disrupting the election. In the name of protesting the election, they burnt more than 3,000 people, and set fire to over 500 polling booths and public and private institutions including schools," the statement, signed by the Awami League's Office Secretary Barrister Biplab Barua, quoted Quader as saying.

The Awami League general secretary further accused the BNP of killing a judge in a courtroom bombing and also killing a lawyer during the 2014 general elections. "They wreaked infernal havoc in medieval style by uprooting railway lines, cutting down thousands of trees and roads."

Quader went on saying, "In the 2018 elections, their [BNP] leader, 'the son of corruption', convicted fugitive Tarique Rahman was engaged in a lively nomination business sitting in London. He gave 750 nominations against 300 seats."

Branding the BNP as an "illegal political party", the senior Awami League leader said, "The history of the BNP – which was formed by the dictator Ziaur Rahman who seized power at gunpoint unconstitutionally and illegally – is the political history of anti-democratic, unconstitutional and illegal activities."

Alleging that the BNP had created 1.23 crore fake voters in the past and tried to wipe out the opposition through massacres like the 21 August's one, Quader stated, "The BNP has never done the politics of public welfare and the establishment and development of people's rights, and that's why their politics depends on the grace of foreign lords." 

"If the BNP had minimal faith in people, democracy and welfare politics, there would not have been any crisis in the democratic process of the country," he said further.