BDB candidate retired army major Abdul Mannan submitted the appeal to Acting Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Safiur Rahman, saying the government violated the High Court order for army deployment at each polling center, creating an environment of widespread vote rigging.

He claimed he submitted 'evidence' of vote rigging by the ruling alliance at 89 of 103 polling centers and a wave of other irregularities in the election to back up his demand for cancellation of the by-polls of July 1, a day after lodging a similar appeal with the EC.

The EC secretariat rushed through publication of gazette notification of the polls result and Speaker Jamir Uddin Sircar administered the oath of office to Mosaddak Ali Falu in a similar fashion, taking less than three hours to complete the process.

The EC secretariat sent the gazette notification to press at 9:00am with an order for immediately printing 1,000 copies and the press sent the copies to the EC at 10:30am.

The EC secretariat then sent the gazette to the parliament secretariat at 11:15am and the speaker administered the oath at about 11.40pm, officials said, adding Falu went to the speaker's office for taking oath at 10:30am.

Falu's fast oath-taking evokes the contrasting memory of swearing-in Mahi B Chowdhury, who swept back to parliament from Munshiganj-1 constituency on the BDB platform on June 6.

In his case, the gazette was published on June 8 and the speaker administered the oath on June 13.

MANNAN'S APPEAL

"As the government violated the High Court order of deployment army personnel at each polling center, the election was not held in a free and fair manner and it has no validity," Mannan told reporters after filing the appeal with the EC.

"So, we demand cancellation of the polls immediately."

The acting CEC assured the BDB leader of hearing the appeal in two or three days, Mannan said.

"The Election Commission is empowered to cancel the polls, if it finds gross irregularities."

"We will also move to the High Court challenging the legality of the by-election as its order for army deployment was violated," said Mannan, who resigned from parliament and the ruling BNP on March 10 to join the BDB, founded by former president AQM Badruddoza Chowdhury.

Acting CEC Safiur did not comment on the allegations.

The BDB demanded postponement of the polls raising the allegations of widespread false voting, intimidating of voters and driving away of the opposition candidate's polling agent from booths on Thursday.

The acting CEC at a press briefing on the day rejected the demand, saying his office did not get any evidence of such allegations that called for cancellation of the polls.

He, however, admitted that the High Court order for army deployment at each centre was violated.

The BDB also questioned hurried gazette notification and swearing-in the ruling alliance leader.

"The government has completed it in a hurry fearing legality of the by-election," Mahi told reporters.

EC Secretary SM Zakaria declined to comment on the fast steps to swear-in Falu.

"Don't ask me such an irritating question," he reacted angrily to reporters and advised them to contact the acting CEC.

The Central Working Committee of the Awami League at a meeting with Acting President Abdus Samad Azad in the chair said the hurried oath-taking by Falu proved that the government rigged the by-polls.