Dhaka – Voting for the Jahangirnagar University Central Student Union (JUCSU) concluded on Thursday amid a boycott by a major student group over allegations of widespread vote rigging.
The Jatiyatabadi Chhatra Dal (JCD), the student wing of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), announced its boycott just 90 minutes before polling was scheduled to end at 4:00 pm.
Tanzila Hossain Boishakhi, the Chhatra Dal-backed candidate for General Secretary, made the announcement at a campus news conference. “We knew this election would be stage-managed,” she stated.
Boishakhi detailed several allegations, including: a lack of photographs on the voter list at Tajuddin Hall, which halted voting for two hours, mobs allegedly orchestrated by Islami Chhatra Shibir, the student wing of Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami, at Hall No. 21 and Jahanara Imam Hall, ballot rigging that stopped the election at Meghla Hall, instances of individuals voting multiple times in women’s dormitories by changing their ID cards, which she claimed went unaddressed by the administration.
The JCD further alleged that the failure to use indelible ink at most polling centers enabled a persons’ multiple voting.
“We are boycotting the election due to these specific allegations of vote rigging,” Boishakhi told the news conference.
A total of 11,919 students were eligible to vote for 25 positions, with 178 candidates in the JUCSU race. The contenders included panels from Islami Chhatra Shibir, Chhatra Dal, leftist groups, and independent candidates.
Authorities established 21 polling centers across the campus’s 11 men’s and 10 women’s dormitories, featuring 224 voting booths. To ensure security, 1,500 police officers, seven platoons of Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB), and five platoons of Ansar were deployed on and around the campus.
