AL targets vice-chair posts
With the tally of BNP-blessed vice-chairman candidates still higher after four phases of the upazila polls, the ruling Awami League is now concentrating on making sure their vice-chairman and chairman runners win on Monday's elections to 74 upazila parishads.
Contenders backed by the BNP have so far secured 16 more vice-chairman posts than their opponents blessed by the AL in the 382 upazila parishads where the polls have concluded.
The AL central leaders have directed party's grassroots to pick a single candidate for each of chairman and vice-chairman posts.
The district and upazila level leaders of the AL have made some efforts to this end and have succeeded in many cases, a number of AL grassroots leaders told The Daily Star yesterday.
Chuadanga district AL general secretary Azadul Islam Azad said they had picked a candidate for each of the vice-chairman posts and the chairman post through election and consensus.
"We were asked by the party central to choose one candidate for a post and we have ensured that," he said.
Feni district AL president Abdur Rahman said they had convinced rebel candidates for vice-chairmen posts to back off, adding that this time they had conducted extensive campaign to clinch wins for vice-chairman contestants.
Asked, AL Joint General Secretary Mahabub Ul Alam Hanif said the AL tried to keep to the minimum the number of rebel candidates in the race for vice-chairman posts.
“As the party is monitoring the election centrally, we have been successful in eliminating rebel candidates," Hanif said hoping
that the ruling party would do better in the fifth phase of the elections on Monday.
The BNP has been trying the same in its camp.
Salahuddin Ahmed, joint secretary general of BNP, said the party grassroots had been trying their best to pick a single candidate for each post. "We have more than one candidate in some upazilas as part of our strategy there," he added.
Salahuddin said he fears that the ruling party men would use violence and unfair means again to ensure sweeping victories in the fifth phase of the polls.
He said his party asked the grassroots to resist any bid to rig the polls.
In previous four phases of the polls, the AL had focused only on chairman posts and made vigorous efforts to convince party rebels to quit the race.
The party-backed chairman candidates who were trailing behind the BNP-blessed ones in the first two phases of polls managed to close the gap in the third phase. The AL-blessed candidates took the lead after the fourth phase by winning 29 more chairman posts than the BNP favourites.
They had, however, resorted to widespread violence and rigging. They also won more vice-chairman posts than their rivals backed by the BNP in the fourth phase reducing the lead the BNP-backed candidates had.
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