The AL yesterday complained to the Election Commission (EC) against the ruling BNP of plotting to capture polling centres by hired criminals already gathered in the constituency.

Acting Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Safiur Rahman directed the returning officer (RO), who is also the deputy commissioner of Gazipur, to look into the matter.

Ruling four-party alliance candidate MA Mannan has refuted the allegations. He told The Daily Star yesterday it is rather the AL that is planning to rig the vote.

This is the second time the AL is contesting in the parliamentary by-election under the four- party coalition government. Last year, it participated in Netrakona 3 by-election which it lost and decided not to participate in the by-polls under the government, accusing it of rigging the polls.

The AL boycotted three by-elections in Kushtia-1, Munshiganj-1 and Dhaka-10 constituencies but decided to contest Gazipur-2 by-election taking into account the fact that it won the seat in 2001 and 1996 general elections. The AL has taken massive preparations for the poll and directed its leaders and activists to stand guard on the polling day.

The non-stop eight-hour ballot begins at 8:00am in the second largest constituency in terms of voters, which fell vacant at the assassination of AL lawmaker Ahsanullah Master at a rally in Tongi on May 7.

As many as 5,46,293registered voters are expected to exercise their franchise to elect a lawmaker among eight candidates.

The day has been declared a public holiday in the constituency to allow the electorate to cast their votes at 195 polling centres. Authorities have deployed army, paramilitary Bangladesh Rifles, police and members of other law-enforcement agencies in line with an EC demand for a fair by-poll.

The EC is happy with the security measures and sounded sanguine about a free, fair election. "If the election is not fair, we along with all the people of the country will be shocked," Acting CEC Safiur Rahman told reporters yesterday at his office.

The acting CEC said an election monitoring organisation has informed him about intimidation of voters in some areas, but it did not send detailed information.

AL FEARS

After lodging the verbal complaint at the EC yesterday, AL senior leader Rahmat Ali, also a lawmaker elected from Gazipur-1 seat, said sensing defeat in the poll the four-party alliance candidate has planned to rig it by capturing polling centres. A number of criminals have been drawn from different places and they are roaming the constituency to create panic among the voters, he alleged.

"But one thing I say is that if the criminals try to capture any polling centre, people of Gazipur are ready to resist them," Rahmat told The Daily Star yesterday.

Gazipur AL President AKM Mozammel Haque told The Daily Star they have directed leaders and activists to keep a close watch on the polling centres against trouble-making by the ruling alliance loyalists.

KEY CANDIDATES CONFIDENT

Both candidates of the ruling and opposition parties are optimistic about winning the poll, with analysts predicting the battle to be limited between ruling coalition candidate MA Mannan and his key challenger Zahid Ahsan Russell of the AL. Russell is the eldest son of slain lawmaker Ahsanullah.

The authorities have already relieved 17 polling officials of election duty for allegedly being biased towards a political party and relocated 20 swamped polling centres.

Some 272 election observers including four officials from the US embassy and one each from the Netherlands and Italian missions will observe the by-election.