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Iftekhar Rahman, a potential councillor who was among the 15 club representatives snubbed from the draft voters list for the upcoming BCB elections, on Wednesday said that it was not possible how things had panned out without the board intervening.

Iftekhar, who is also a director and the chairman of the media committee of the current board, put his objection over the draft voters list published on Tuesday to the representatives of the election commission. 

‘The results you are seeing, the doubts you are having or the comments you are making could not have been possible without that [instructions from the board],’ Iftekhar said when he was asked whether the BCB instructed the election commission to make the decisions. 

‘They are making decisions based on just the Anti-Corruption Unit’s recommendation that the matter could be further investigated. If they found anything, they would not have just recommended it. And you are making decisions based on that,’ he further said.

He also said that such things have never happened before. 

‘I have been with cricket for 40 years. I have seen a lot, but I have never seen anything like this. If I had issues personally, then you could scrap me—no problem. But here, things are different,’ he said. 

According to the schedule, objections were received between 10:00am and 5:00pm on Wednesday at the chief election commissioner’s office at the Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium in Mirpur. 

It was learnt that around 30 objections were put in, including one against Tamim Iqbal, a frontrunner for becoming the next president.

However, no election commissioner or their representative has come to update the media so far. 

The hearings of the objection are scheduled today between 10:00am and 5:00pm. 

Earlier, the election commission scrapped nominations representing 15 clubs—including Gulshan Cricket Club, who played in the last season of the Dhaka Premier Division Cricket League—due to an investigation run by the Anti-Corruption Unit despite the BCB earlier mentioning that those clubs didn’t have any problem nominating councillors. 

The election commission said that they had taken the decision considering the ‘bright future of cricket’ and ‘greater national interest’. 

The BCB election, of which the vote casting is scheduled on October 6, has been mired with controversy since the beginning. 

On Wednesday, national cricketers like Taijul Islam and Mohammad Mithun came forward to express their frustrations on social media. 

‘What is happening around the BCB election isn’t expected at all. This is a matter of the future of Bangladesh cricket and cricketers. We want the BCB election to be free, fair, and neutral,’ Taijul wrote on his official Facebook page.