By hindsight, there was some apprehension of trouble on the election day, but what actually happened surpassed even the worst fear. The Election Commission had proved confused, even wobbly, in dealing with the machinations resorted to on behalf of the ruling party candidate from the beginning of the electioneering process. Which is why the High Court had to intervene responding to writ filed by the aggrieved Bikalpa Dhara candidate, not just once but twice. At first, the right to use kula as party symbol had to be secured through an HC verdict. And, then, at the most crucial phase, on the penultimate day to the by-election, the High Court gave a ruling for army deployment at all polling centres on another writ petition by Maj (retd) Mannan. The directive was intended to make sure that army would be pressed into service to ward off outward incident anywhere in the parliamentary constituency. But the most stunning irony has been the circumvention of the army deployment requirement. The government used a technicality bypass, so to speak, by claiming that the deployment of armed police, BDR and Ansar was equable with the presence of armed forces where the military was not exclusively deployed.

What followed was an outright invasion of the election process to yield victory for a side hell-bent on having the verdict their way. Let's catalogue the excesses the electoral process was subjected to: polling agents of Major Mannan were forced out of many booths; there was an epidemic of false voting as hundreds of legitimate voters, some going as a family to vote, were turned away from booths saying their ballots have already been cast; busloads of voters were transported in from outside the constituency; an orchestrated scheme of false voting was resorted to with impersonators carrying chits bearing details of genuine voters and presenting themselves before the polling officers. The latter having no way of verifying the veracity without identity card, had to allow them in.

The above speaks for itself, and impels us to maintain that the election was a complete charade, and an unqualified perfidy enacted on the voters' right to franchise, their right to make a free choice.