NUF leaders Major (retd) Abdul Mannan, Mahi B Chowdhury MP, Abdur Rouf and Zakir Hossain carried the pens, which had slogans demanding their resignation printed on them, to the Election Commission (EC).

They left the pens next to the CEC's nameplate in front of his office on the first floor of the EC building at Sher-e-Bangla Nagar as the CEC and the election commissioners did not receive the pens.

"We requested them to resign before but they did not respond. So we tried to give them symbolic pens to sign the resignation letters," Mannan told reporters at the EC yesterday.

"We want free and fair general election that is acceptable to all, but the government appointed the CEC and ECs to serve its purpose and implement the blue print to rig the elections," he said.

The CEC, however, was not at his office when the NUF leaders went there to give him the pen. Election commissioners SM Zakaria and Justice Mahfuzur Rahman refused to talk to reporters about the matter.

The newly appointed Election Commissioner Mahmud Hasan Mansur told journalists yesterday, "All of them [election commissioners] are respectable people and what they have done here is their democratic right, I have nothing more to say about it."

On June 27, NUF leaders gave a letter to CEC and the election commissioners demanding their resignation.

"If the CEC and the commissioners do not resign then we will implement tougher programmes like laying siege to the EC," Mannan told reporters.

"The ruling alliance government appointed a former defence secretary to the EC to ensure full control of elections through the army but our army will never stand against the people's will," Mahi B Chowdhury said.