One Bangladesh Nationalist Party-backed councillor candidate was killed and dozens were injured in electoral violence in the second phase of the municipal elections held in 60 municipalities on Saturday, which was tainted by violence, rigging, intimidation and other irregularities.
Ruling Awami League candidates bagged most of the mayoral posts.
Raising allegations of irregularities or protesting attacks by AL activists, many BNP mayoral candidates, a large number of councillor candidates backed by the party and some independent councillor candidates boycotted the polls hours after the voting kicked off at 8:00am.
In Sirajganj, BNP-backed councillor-elect Tariqul Islam was killed in an attack allegedly by the defeated candidate’s supporters.
Locals said that a group of supporters of Shahadat Hossain, AL ward unit general secretary, had made an attack in the Natun Vangabaro area in the town after the unofficial result was declared.
Confirming the matter Sadar police inspector (investigation) M Golam Mustafa said that Tariqul had been injured critically during the clash between two groups of supporters.
Later a physician declared Tariqul dead at a local hospital, police said.
Dozens of people, including BNP and AL supporters, police personnel and Ansar members were injured in clashes in various municipal areas during and after the vote.
Election commissioner Mahbub Talukdar said that the municipal elections that were held on Saturday could not be called a participatory exercise as polling agents and campaign materials of opposition candidates were absent in many electoral areas.
‘I visited 18 polling booths at three centres in Savar municipality till 1:00pm Saturday. In the booths, 1,232 of the 7,311 votes were cast and I found opposition polling agents at three of those booths,’ Mahbub said in a written statement.
He said that he also had not found any poster of opposition candidates in the municipal area.
On the other hand, addressing a post-vote press conference, EC secretary M Alamgir said that the elections were held peacefully except some isolated incidents.
He said that people had cast their ballots willingly in a festive mood.
Giving reaction over the polling, BNP standing committee member Khandaker Mosharraf Hossain said that AL activists had captured voting centres in most of the municipalities.
In a press conference at the Gulshan office of the party chairperson, Mosharraf said that ruling party people barred the agents of BNP candidates from entering polling centres.
In many places, they forced them to leave the centres and prevented BNP supporters from going to polling stations, Mosharraf added.
AL general secretary Obaidul Quader said that people had responded to the BNP’s falsehood over the elections during the AL rule by exercising their franchise in a huge number amid festivity and enthusiasm in the second phase of the municipal elections.
The BNP, he said, is not getting any support for their evil attempts to make the country’s election system questionable as the people do not believe in its falsehood any longer.
