Increase of upazila election security deposit 10 times extremely arbitrary

A meeting of the Ganatantra Manch central steering committe was held at the central office of Nagorik Oikya on Thursday.

Dhaka, April 18 - A meeting of the central steering committee of the Platform for Democracy was held at the central office of Nagarik Oikya under the chairmanship of Jonaid Saki, the current coordinator of the platform, the chief coordinator of the Gono Sanghati Andolan.

Nagarik Oikya President Mahmudur Rahman Manna, Revolutionary Workers Party  General Secretary Saiful Haque, Bhasani Anusari Parishad Convener Rafiqul Islam Bablu, State Reform Movement Chief Coordinator Advocate Hasnat Qayyum, Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal-JSD General Secretary Shahid Uddin Mahmud Swapan, General Secretary of Nagorik Oikya Shahidullah Koysor, Member of Political Council of Revolutionary Workers Party Bahnishikha Jamali, Joint Convener of Bhasani Anusari Parishad Babul Biswas, Member Secretary of Gono Sanghati Andolan Bachchu Bhuiyan, Organizational Coordinator of State Reform Movement Imran Imon, Joint General Secretary of Nagorik Oikya Manjur Qadir, Revolutionary Workers Party’s Akbar Khan, Joint Member-Secretary of the Bhasani Anusari Parishad, Habibur Rahman Habib, Faridul Haque, Political Coordinator of the State Reform Movement, and other leaders spoke at the function.

The leaders termed the decision to increase the security deposit 10 times to one lakh and seventy five thousand taka in the upcoming upazila parishad elections of the local government as extreme eccentricity and arbitrariness and said that this decision was taken to facilitate black money owners and corrupt mafias. As a result of this decision of the Election Commission, there will be no opportunity for honest people-friendly leaders and workers to participate in local government elections.

They said, on the one hand, when the entire competitive election system has collapsed, the decision to increase the security deposit 10 times in the upazila elections will make the elections meaningless.

The people of the country did not participate in the dummy elections of 2014, '18 and '24 under the government which they termed as undemocratic. This strategy of the  government is to discourage candidates in the upazila elections in the same way that the people are discouraged from voting in the elections. Because the government knows very well that the people of the country will not vote for them. The Platform for Democracy rejected this stubborn decision of the government terming it as anti-democratic. - Press release