Mirza Abbas expresses 100% confident of victory in Dhaka-8

BNP-nominated candidate and party Standing Committee member Mirza Abbas on Thursday (February 12) expressed “100 percent confidence” of winning the Dhaka-8 seat.

He cast his vote around 12:30pm at Mirza Abbas Mohila College polling centre in Shahjahanpur in the capital.

Speaking to reporters afterwards, Abbas said the voting atmosphere had so far remained peaceful and orderly, while warning that any attempt at manipulation or “election engineering” would not be accepted.

“Until now, the environment is free and normal. We have not received any reports of major disruptions,” he said.

Responding to allegations by rival candidate Nasir Uddin Patwary of the National Citizen Party (NCP), who claimed BNP activists were obstructing his polling agents from entering several centres, Abbas dismissed the allegation as baseless.

“That is his personal opinion. In a democratic country, anyone can express their views. I have no objection to that,” he said.

He instead alleged that the NCP had failed to deploy agents to many polling centres and was now attempting to shift the blame onto others.

Reaffirming his confidence in the outcome, Abbas said his party would accept the people’s verdict. “The people will vote for whomever they choose, and we will accept that mandate. But if there is any attempt to alter the results behind the scenes or engage in election engineering, the people will reject it—and so will we,” he added.

Voters were seen turning up at centres across Dhaka-8 since morning. No major incidents of violence had been reported at the time of filing this report.