Dhaka, Feb 3 (UNB) – The BNP apprehends a ‘vote robbery’ in the long-awaited Ducsu elections like the last parliamentary polls, unless ‘coexistence’ of different student bodies is ensured on the Dhaka University (DU) campus.
“The Dhaka University authorities announced to hold Ducsu polls after a national election of grand vote robbery. People are skeptical about whether the university authorities can ensure a fair election as democracy is in distress,” the party’s senior joint secretary general Ruhul Kabir Rizvi said on Sunday.
Speaking at a press conference at the BNP’s Nayapaltan central office, he further said, “If the coexistence of all student organisations on the campus is not guaranteed, Ducsu polls will be a continuation of the elections of grand vote robbery.”
The DU authorities on January 23 announced that the elections to the Dhaka University Central Students’ Union (Ducsu) and hall unions will be held on March 11.
With this, the long-pending Ducsu election is going to be held after 29 years as the last one was held on June 6, 1990.
Rizvi said though the freedom of learning and freedom of research with a goal to communicate the truth is the main academic tone of the universities, the students in Bangladesh are now kept away from it.
“The freedom of learning and freedom of research will not be ensured without coexistence of students, tolerance and freedom of debate,” he observed.
The BNP leader also lamented that educational excellence is not receiving the due importance in the country’s universities as all campuses are now under the strong influence of ‘one-party misrule’.
