Polling officers helped ballot stuffing at Curzon Hall centre.

The polling station at Curzon Hall of Dhaka University on Tuesday presented vivid show ballot stuffing by the polling agents of ruling Awami League’s candidates with help from the election officers. The police on duty were also seen helping ballot stuffing.   Assistant polling officers and  on duty police were seen openly helping the agents of AL’s mayoral and councillor candidates in ballot stuffing while the presiding officer Md Hiron Chowdhury looked  the other way. The centre’s voters were mostly teachers and employees and  the members of their families besides the students of DU dormitories, Fazlul Haque Hall, Dr Shaidullah Hall and Amar Ekushey Hall. In the morning there were moderately long queues of voters. After midday the ballot stuffing began as virtually no voters turned out to cast votes.    . Up to 9.30 AM 94 votes were cast at the Curzon Hall centre. Out of 22 polling agents at the centre 17 were of AL. BNP’s mayoral candidate Mirza Abbas had two polling agents and both of them left the centre at about 12.30 PM after BNP withdrew.

The scenario at the centre quickly changed after Mirza Abbas’s agents left and AL’s polling agents joined by Chhtra League leaders and activists began stuffing ballots. The festival of ballot stuffing began at booth No 5 where AL’s polling agent Md Mehedi Hasan gathered youths for the exercise. Assistant presiding officer Sultana Yasmin gave them a free hand without checking their identities. At one stage Sultana invited New Age correspondent to cast five or six votes. By 2.30 PM AL’s polling agents took control of the booths bearing the numbers 2, 3 and 7 by throwing out the assistant presiding officers. The assistant presiding officers of the other booths directly helped the polling agents of AL in stuffing ballots. Al’s polling agents called on duty police  when two journalists tried to talk to the voters. The polling agents complained to the police that the journalists were creating problems  by ‘asking questions to the voters.’ Many individuals were seen casting votes several times by hiding their fingers marked with ink and asking each other , ‘How many votes did you cast?’ Right from 8 AM when voting started, the polling officers showed no interest to mark voters fingers with ink. After 3.30 PM, AL polling agent – Saifur Rahman – told New Age – ‘Please be seated and don’t roam around. We did not disturb you. As things are going end please don’t disturb us.’ They also took selfie shots using cell phones while stuffing ballots. When asked, presiding officer Md Hiron Chowdhury told New Age that he would  make no comments on what was going on. After voting ended at 4 PM, the count showed 1,120 votes had been cast with all the AL candidates – Sayeed Khokon, Farid Uddin Ahmed Ratan and Syeda Roksana Islam winning.

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