Bangladesh Government Dissolves BCB Board Over Election Irregularities

Bangladesh Government Dissolves BCB Board Over Election Irregularities

The Bangladesh government’s investigation committee has found evidence of vote-rigging, bias, and coercion in the October 2025 BCB elections, leading to the dissolution of the BCB’s board.

The five-member committee, led by former justice AKM Asaduzzaman, submitted its findings to the sports ministry on Sunday, and the Bangladesh government acted quickly, dissolving the BCB’s board later in the day.

Committee Findings

The committee found BCB’s top brass uncooperative on numerous occasions, and Aminul Islam, the erstwhile BCB president, said late last week in an interview that he had not given the committee a face-to-face interview, instead sending a written reply.

Mohammad Aminul Ahesan, the National Sports Council (NSC) sports director, read out the government’s report at a press conference on Tuesday afternoon: “The election process was not free, fair or transparent. Voters were intimidated and procedural irregularities were rampant,” he said.

New Ad-Hoc Committee

Ahesan said that the government had found enough reason to dissolve the Aminul-led BCB board and ended his briefing by naming the 11 members of the new ad-hoc committee that will run the BCB for the next three months. Tamim Iqbal, the former Bangladesh captain who had accused Aminul of abuse of power four weeks before the election last year, is the new BCB president.

Tamim’s allegation was just one of the things the investigating committee managed to confirm, finding the deadline extension for the submission of councillors’ name to have “ulterior motives”.

• The committee found BCB president Aminul and then director Nazmul Abedeen Fahim to have secured their councillorships for the elections through influence.
• The duo was included in the Dhaka division and district ad-hoc committees on September 8 last year because of the influence of sports ministry officials.
• Ahesan called it “a serious abuse of power”.

Evidence of Abuse of Power

The committee also found evidence of Aminul unilaterally selecting ten former cricketers as councillors to vote in category 3 of the BCB elections. No audio or video recordings of the alleged board meeting where Aminul said the BCB directors allowed him to select the ten voters could be found.

“Based on the statements of the other directors interviewed, the committee has inferred that Mr Aminul Islam Bulbul was not duly authorised to nominate ten councillors from among the former cricketers,” the report said. “Also, as per Article 9.3.3 of the BCB constitution, the president does not have the power to unilaterally nominate ten former cricketers as councillors. Therefore, Mr Aminul Islam Bulbul, as the BCB president, acted beyond his authority. This is a clear abuse of power and a violation of the BCB constitution.

“The committee found that Mr Aminul Islam Bulbul’s unilateral nomination of ten former cricketers had a significant impact on the election process, as he received benefits from those councillors and potentially influenced the election outcome.”

Rigging of E-Voting Process

According to the report, Aminul and NSC officials were also deemed to have rigged the e-voting process. The conclusion was reached after interviews with voters who called the e-voting system “pre-planned”.

“The committee found that e-voting was conducted from a specific location and the confidentiality of the vote was not maintained, which is against basic democratic principles and the BCB constitution,” the report said. “Again, most of these voters were present at the polling station on the day of physical voting of e-voters. Although there was an opportunity to vote directly, e-voting was conducted by gathering in one place at the Sheraton Hotel in the capital on the night of (October 5) and the process seemed to the committee to be vote rigging.”