Shawdesh desk:

Chief election commissioner Kazi Habibul Awal on Tuesday said that inviting the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party for ‘informal’ talks was a strategy of the Election Commission and not of the government.

The CEC made the comment at a press briefing at his office in Dhaka, three days after the BNP’s March 25 allegation that the Election Commission’s invitation letter to it for talks was a new polls strategy of the Awami League government.

‘BNP was invited for an informal meeting, not a dialogue,’ he said, adding that the government had nothing to do with it.

‘We saw in the media that many people saying that writing to BNP is a strategy of the government.  But I am saying that there is no strategy of the government behind EC’s letter to BNP.  It could be rather a trick of the EC,’ he added.

He said that things would not be like that if the government pressured the EC.

‘There is no government involvement here,’ he said.

He said that the Election Commission did not do any work as per the orders of the government.

‘It is better to bring a party like BNP to the elections, that’s why I called informally,’ he said.

He also said that the BNP was not called under the pressure of any international group.

A letter was sent to BNP as per the decision taken by all the election commissioners, he said.