Narsingdi by-election

They even allegedly chased and assaulted an independent candidate, who also emerged as the nearest rival of the ruling party candidate. Even the local police used baton in some places to disperse the independent candidate's supporters when they were reportedly going to lodge official complaints of vote rigging. Why and to prove what? This by-election was in the news in a different way when a controversy raged over the nomination of the ruling party candidate. Thanks to internal conflicts in the local BNP, supporters of other hopefuls created anarchy in the township.

And now with the allegations of irregularities, some of them pointed by a few monitoring groups, during the election day itself, there is another, albeit a more serious controversy, to take note of. We are simply shocked at the lack of tolerance by the ruling party supporters towards the opponent in a by-election which was not even contested by the main opposition party. They could have easily shown restraint. And especially since the issue of holding free and fair elections is a national concern, the by-poll should have passed off without any incident.

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