Right to pick honest candidate at stake
Citizen's campaign critical of protecting poll aspirants' personal info
Staff Correspondent
Shushashoner Janney Nagorik (Shujan) yesterday said people's right to choose an honest and credible candidate in the upcoming parliamentary elections will be hampered since they will not be able to know vital information about the contestants.A movement for good governance, Shujan expressed its concern over the issue at a press conference in Dhaka styled as "Attempt to Snatch Away Voters' Right to Know". Its leaders talked on the stayed High Court (HC) verdict that compels the Election Commission (EC) to collect and make public some vital information about the poll candidates. Prof Muzaffer Ahmad, Shujan chief, in his introductory speech said the qualitative change that was enhanced through the May 24, 2005 HC verdict on people's right to know has now been undermined. Dr Badiul Alam Majumdar, Shujan secretary, posed a question, "Will it not make the criminalised politics more vile? Over the immediate implementation of the stay order, former adviser to caretaker government Hafizuddin Khan said the EC might look after a certain quarter's interest. It was a 'dilly-dally body earlier, now it seems over prompt". Syed Abul Maqsud, eminent columnist, asked, "Does the state machinery assist the black money holders and criminals, harming the rights of people"? Badiul Alam Majumdar said Abu Safa, according to Shujan investigation, who filed the appeal against the HC verdict, is not at all a philanthropic nomination seeker; rather he abandoned his wife and two children at Kalapahia village in Sandwip. His family sources said he is now staying with his second wife at Tongi and working with a shop at Cherag Ali market there. But Safa could not be traced in Tongi. Though Safa in his petition raised objection to disclosing the academic qualification, the Supreme Court (SC) stayed all the eight points of the HC verdict, Shujan leaders said. Meanwhile, at another press conference at the second hall of the SCBA, the three writ petitioners advocates Abdul Momen Chowdhury, KM Zabir and Mohammad Zahirul Islam submitted caveat to the advocate-on-record, Syed Mahbubur Rahman, to contest the case at the SC Appellate Division. They said the hearing was held without letting the advocate-on-record get informed and in presence of BNP leader and former law minister Barrister Moudud Ahmed and Barrister Omar Sadat, son-in-law of another BNP minister Shahjahan Siraj. Abdul Momen Chowdhury, one of the writ petitioners, alleged Moudud acted behind the scene while Omar moved the matter in the Appellate Division. "If we were informed through the advocate-on-record, the SC after proper hearing might not issue stay on that public interest case," he said.
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