Dhaka, March 25 (IANS) 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.

According to the report, two days following the elections, on February 15, the 11-party alliance applied to the EC for recounts in 32 constituencies, with vote margins ranging from 1,026 to 13,632 votes.

“Of those seats, 25 were candidates from the Jamaat, three from the National Citizen Party (NCP), two from the Khelafat Majlis, and one each for the Bangladesh Khelafat Majlis and the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP),” it added.

After filing complaints with the EC, so far 12 candidates initiated legal challenges in courts between late February and last week, including Jamaat Secretary General Mia Golam Porwar from the Khulna-5 constituency.

Earlier in March 5, Jamaat held a press conference calling for a legal inquiry and questioning of the two advisors for “election engineering” — a demand reiterated by party leaders multiple times.

Speaking to Prothom Alo, Jammat Secretary General Mia Golam Porwar said that their priority is on the two former advisors, while concerns about the impartiality of other leaders in the interim government will be addressed in due course.

“We are indeed demanding a proper inquiry. This is necessary for the investigation of the allegations. Whether the government will carry out this process directly or it will be conducted through a judicial inquiry is a decision for the government to make. Nonetheless, we are insisting on this demand. For the time being, this is the stage at which we stand,” Porwar stated.

–IANS

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