Staff Reporter :
Jahangir Alam, Awami League mayor candidate, was unofficially declared elected in the Gazipur City Corporation (GCC) election.
He has defeated BNP contestant Hasan Uddin Sarker by a huge margin of 222,399 votes.
Jahangir bagged 400,010 votes while Hasan Uddin polled 197,611 in 416 centres out of 425 in the polls held on Tuesday. The voting was suspended in the remaining nine polling stations due to violence, booth capturing and fake voting. Returning officer Rakib Uddin Mandol announced the unofficial results around 7 am on Wednesday.
The balloting in the GCC election was held amid BNP’s various allegations of irregularities and vote fraud at many polling stations.
However, the ruling party and its mayor candidate claimed that the balloting was largely fair and BNP brought the allegations to make the polls controversial only.
The voting was suspended in nine polling centres, including Khartoil Mansur Ali Adarsha School, West Joydebpur Madinatul Ulum Madrasah, Bhogra Government Primary School and Daffodil Kindergarten-2, due to violence and capturing of polling stations and giving fake votes, said Dr Dewan Mohammad Humayun Kabir, Deputy Commissioner of Gazipur.
Some 6.30 lakh voters out of total 1,137,736 voters — 569,935 males and 567,801 females – exercised their franchise in the election, the RO said, adding that the turnout of voters was around 57.02 percent. During the voting, the BNP mayor candidate demanded that the Election Commission (EC) should stop voting immediately.
“They (AL men) captured over 100 centres since the morning after driving out my polling agents and established full control over all the polling stations by1pm,” the BNP mayor candidate said at a press conference.
He said that Hasan Uddin the ruling party men stuffed ballots and cast fake votes in absence of his agents. Sarker cast his vote at Bashiruddin Udayan Academy polling centre in Tongi while ruling party candidate Jahangir cast his vote at Kanaia Govt Primary School under ward No 30 in the morning.
Talking to newsman, Jahangir said the BNP candidate brought various false allegations to make the election controversial.
He also denied that his supporters drove BNP candidate’s agents out of any polling station. “It’s the weakness of the BNP mayor runner that he couldn’t send his agents.”
Two councillor candidates – Hannan Mia Hannu and Zillur Rahman Mukul of Wards 26 and 38 respectively – were injured in separate incidents of scuffle that took place during the polling.
Of them, Zillur was taken to a local hospital. Meanwhile, BNP senior joint secretary general Ruhul Kabir Rizvi alleged that ruling party men captured over 100 voting centres and stuffed ballots in the GCC polls.
He also alleged that their party mayor candidate’s polling agents were forced out of many centres by the ruling party men with the help of police. Seven mayor candidates-AL’s Jahangir Alam, BNP’s Hasan Uddin Sarker, CPB’s Kazi Mohammad Ruhul Amin, Islami Oikya Jote’s Fazlur Rahman, Islami Andolan Bangladesh’s M Nasir Uddin, Bangladesh Islami Front M Jalal Uddin and independent runner Farid Ahmed-were there in the race.
Besides, some 254 general councillors and 84 reserved-seat female councillor candidates were there in the race. However, a councillor has already been elected unopposed.
