Controversies over the Dhaka University Central Students’ Union elections held recently have been intensifying following a television channel report that revealed that the DUCSU election ballot papers were printed at an unprotected printing press in the Gausul Azam Market, Nilhket, near the campus. Â
Several candidates in the DUCSU elections have, meanwhile, raised allegations of massive irregularities in the polls, including unprotected ballot papers printed at Nilkhet’s Gausul Azam Market just two days before the polls.
Md Jalal of the Jalal Printing Press at Nilkhet said that his press had printed the ballot papers on payment, an allegation rejected by the university authorities.
DU authorities claimed that a lone private company having the capacity for printing the ballot papers and supplying the OMR (optical mark recognition) machines required for counting the ballots was given the work order.
‘I received a work order from one of my regular clients, namely Wahid Habib, to print 86,000 ballot papers for the DUCSU elections…The printed ballot papers were sent to Makkah Paper House in the same market for cutting,’ Jalal told ¶¶Òõ¾«Æ· on Thursday.
Makkah Paper House owner Halimul Karim admitted that the printed ballots were cut at his business premises.
He said that the Detective Branch of the Dhaka Metropolitan Police had interrogated him regarding the printing and cutting of the ballot papers and about who had issued the work orders.
DUCSU chief returning officer professor Mohammad Zashim Uddin told ¶¶Òõ¾«Æ· on Thursday that the vendors had hidden information about the ballot printing at Gausul Azam Market.
He added that the university administration would form a commission to investigate the matter.
Meanwhile, Wahid Habib said that a business house named MRM Engineering obtained the work order from Dhaka University to print the ballot papers for the DUCSU polls.
‘As an employee of MRM Engineering, I went to Jalal’s press to print the ballot papers, and those were printed with proper security and confidentiality,’ he claimed.
Wahid said that their firm received a work order to print 86,000 ballot papers for the DUCSU elections, while a large portion of the printing work was assigned to another business house -- Anza Corporation.
DMP DB chief Shafiqul Islam, however, denied interrogating anyone in this connection.
According to a media report, Anza Corporation Ltd was a company that won the tender to print ballots and count them on OMR machines.
Company chair Zahid Hossain told the media that the company printed 1,53,000 ballots for the elections.
Zahid firstly claimed that the ballots were printed at his own press in Keraniganj.
Later, he told the media that he was in China at the time and his employees did the work.
There were 39,874 registered voters in the DUCSU elections and each voter cast their votes for their preferred candidates on a six-page ballot — five pages for central and one page for hall union elections.
As a result, the total number of required ballot paper pages is 2,39,224.
On the polls day, DUCSU chief returning officer professor Mohammad Zashim Uddin told ¶¶Òõ¾«Æ· that 78.33 per cent of the votes were cast in the DUCSU elections.
Later, on September 11, he, however, told ¶¶Òõ¾«Æ· that 74.75 per cent votes were cast in the elections where 29,821 out of the 39,874 registered voters cast their votes at the eight polling centres.
Bangladesh Islami Chhatra Shibir-backed panel won 23 among the 28 posts, including the vice-president, general secretary and assistant general secretary posts in the DUCSU elections, marked by allegations of several irregularities, including vote rigging, and violations of electoral code of conducts -- held after a six-year gap -- on September 9.
Bangladesh Students’ Union Dhaka University unit on Thursday alleged that a huge number of unprotected ballot papers were found at a printing press at Nilkhet’s Gausul Azam Market on September 7, without any supervision of the university administration, reported DU Correspondent.
At a press conference held at Madhu’s Canteen on Thursday noon, the organisation placed 12 allegations of irregularities and inconsistencies over the recently held DUCSU elections.
The organisation’s president and DUCSU general secretary candidate, Meghmallar Basu, said that despite the recovery of a huge number of unprotected ballot papers at Nilkhet, there was no administrative oversight.
Allegations of manipulation in OMR machines were also reported as votes cast for one candidate were shown for another in the software, Meghmallar went on to say.
‘Despite repeated complaints, the [DU] administration deliberately delayed action, making this year’s DUCSU and hall union elections undemocratic, irregular, and questionable,’ Meghmallar added.
Earlier on Tuesday, several DUCSU election candidates met the university administration and demanded explanations over alleged irregularities over the polls, including the incident of unprotected ballot papers at Nilkhet.
Among them were Swatantra Sikkharthi Oikyo’s VP candidate Umama Fatema, Jatiyatabadi Chhatra Dal-backed panel’s VP candidate Abidul Islam Khan, and Boishommo Birodhi Sikkharthi Sangsad’s VP candidate Abdul Kader.
Abidul said, ‘Instead, we opted to submit written complaints to the election commission,’ he said.
‘But we have not received any clear statement till now,’ Abidul said, adding that ballot papers were found in an unprotected state before the polling day and that the administration must immediately clarify the matter.
Abdul Kader told reporters that candidates, panel members, and general students had long expressed concerns about the election commission’s neutrality, both before and after the polls.
He said that the candidates had officially sought answers regarding ballot security and voter lists, but the administration’s indifference had only deepened doubts.
‘We do not want the university’s reputation to be tarnished, but unless transparency and accountability are ensured, the elections would remain questionable in history,’ Kader added.
Umama Fatema said that in any future analyses of Bangladesh’s political history, the September 9 DUCSU elections would inevitably be scrutinised.
She said that finding unprotected ballot papers at Nilkhet and the administration’s refusal to release the list of voter turnout despite repeated written requests were particularly alarming.
A group of Dhaka University students on Thursday evening held a protest rally demanding an investigation into the ballot paper printing irregularities that exposed serious lapses in the election process.