Election commissioner Mahbub Talukder on Sunday said that widespread unrest might spill into the country if differences over the electoral system were not settled through the active participation of political parties.
He expressed his fear while talking about the massive electoral violence that claimed over a dozen of lives in the second phase of union parishad elections held on Thursday while at least seven people were killed just on the polling day.
In a written statement, Talukder said that the intolerance towards political dissent had caused serious harm to the democracy.
‘The election in the country is now in the incentive care unit while the democracy is on life support,’ he said.
‘We want to bring democracy back to normalcy at any cost to establish the multi-party democratic system. It needs concerted effort of all parties,’ Mahbub said.
Expressing his concern over the election-time violence, he said, ‘It will not be an exaggeration if I term the recent election [2nd phase of UP polls] a sanguinary election as at least 39 people were killed in various violent clashes during the election and before and after the election.’
About the reformation of the Election Commission, he said that no law had been enacted yet to appoint a chief election commissioner and other election commissioners in 50 years though there was a constitutional obligation to enact such a law.
He said that the enactment of a law in this regard was not a total solution as the law should protect the interest of all parties.
‘Unilateral enactment of such a law may not yield any solution as such a law will benefit one party and create a scope for one-party rule. So, all differences among political parties should be settled to this end as soon as possible,’ he added.
