BNP expels Manjurul Ahsan Munshi after viral video

BNP has officially expelled Manjurul Ahsan Munshi from all posts within the party after a video-clip went viral, which shows he is warning people against voting for other parties.

Manjurul Ahsan Munshi’s statements and activities are against BNP’s policy and ideology, and thus, he has been removed from the party’s central executive committee and from all other positions, the party said in a press release issued Tuesday.

BNP Senior Joint Secretary General Ruhul Kabir Rizvi signed the statement.

In the video, Munshi threatens that he would burn down the houses of people who would vote for parties not aligned with BNP in the 12 February national elections. He would inflict the violence if BNP is voted to power, and if other people are found voting for opposite parties in this constituency.

“I will not spare anyone, if BNP comes to power and you people vote for opposite candidates,” he says in the video.

“Do not think that I am merely issuing verbal threats. Rather, I am saying clearly that I would act on my words,” he says.

Later, he claimed that he made remarks only before his own relatives out of “personal anguish.” He did not mean to threaten the other people in the Cumilla-4 constituency, he hinted. A vested group is conducting a smear campaign against him by showing only a portion of the full speech he gave at an election rally recently, he alleged.

Manjurul Ahsan Munshi was a candidate aspirant from Cumilla-4, but the Election Commission (EC) cancelled his application following loan default allegations raised by his rival candidate Hasnat Abdullah, the candidate of NCP and Jamaat-led alliance.

Now, he is campaigning for a candidate from Gono Odhikar Parishad, an electoral partner of BNP.