Kazi Zahidul Hasan :Powerful rebel candidates may create discontent for ruling party Awami League (AL) and BNP in the upcoming municipality polls as both the parties have reportedly failed to convince their dissidents to quit the race, insiders said.They said, the rebel candidates are determined to contest the polls even after they failed to get party nominations which may create a chaotic situation in the election.In many municipalities, aspirants from AL and BNP who failed to get party tickets already staged demonstrations accusing their local leaders. “AL has already prepared a list of 236 mayoral candidates for the ensuing municipality polls. But it has more than one prospective candidate in almost all the 235 municipalities. If the dissidents do not quit the claim, it will intensify intra-party feud at the local level leading to deadly infighting,” a senior AL leader told The New Nation on Wednesday night, asking not to be named.He said, some mayoral candidates loyal to Ministers and Members Parliament (MPs) earlier influenced grassroots to get nominations. But the aspirants finally failed to win party support as AL Chief Sheikh Hasina herself selected the party candidates on the basis of grassroots opinion. “These powerful dissidents may create problems for the party by creating chaos in the election field,” he apprehends.The AL leader, however, claimed that those who have been provided with the party tickets for the December 30 municipality polls are the veterans and dedicated party activists.On Monday, the AL nomination board headed by Sheikh Hasina in a meeting prepared the list of its mayoral candidates sent by the grassroots committees.When asked, AL Joint General Secretary Jahangir Kabir Nanak, said, “We hope there will be no rebel candidates in the polls as the party high-ups have already selected single mayor aspirants. “The list of our candidates has been prepared on the basis of grassroots’ opinions,” he added.He said, AL is a large organisation with several eligible candidates in every municipality. They all wanted nominations but our leader Sheikh Hasina made the final decision in this regard. “Earlier, the party high command asked the grassroots committees to send one name for each municipality, but in it did not happen because in many cases they sent more than one aspirant candidates. As the party high command went for picking up single candidate, the deprived ones turn hostile further intensifying internal feud,” another AL leader told The New Nation, preferring anonymity.He added: The deprived candidates and their supporters have already staged protests in several municipalities, raising fear that those who got party tickets might face intra-party rebels in the upcoming polls.Such an intra-party conflict may have an adverse impact on election results, he said.When the ruling AL is struggling to tame their rebel candidates, BNP seems to be in a comfortable position as the number of their dissidents are lower than the AL. “They are also firm on running in the polls opposition even though they did not get party tickets. This may create problem for the party when it is struggling to reorganize the grassroots,” a senior BNP leader told The New Nation on Wednesday.He added, “Our party candidates have stepped up for negotiations to avert any untoward situation during polls campaign.” “We have faced less hassle than the AL to pick single mayoral contenders for the upcoming municipality polls because many grassroots-level leaders of our party are unwilling to contest the polls for the fear of police harassment,” he added.
