Dispose of plea for vote recounting

The High Court yesterday directed the Election Commission to dispose of in 30 days an application for recounting the votes cast in the Rangpur City Corporation election held on December 21.

BNP mayoral candidate Kawsar Zaman Babla, who was defeated in the election, submitted the application to the EC on December 27 bringing an allegation of irregularities.

Yesterday, the HC bench of Justice M Moazzam Husain and Justice Md Shohrowardi passed the order following a writ petition filed by Babla challenging the legality of the EC's inaction to settle his application.

Jatiya Party (Ershad) mayoral candidate Mostafizar Rahman Mostafa has won the RCC election defeating Awami League and BNP contestants by a big margin.

Mostafa bagged 1,60,489 votes in all 193 centres while his nearest rival from the ruling AL Sharfuddin Ahmed Jhantu bagged 62,400 votes and BNP candidate Babla secured 35,136 votes. Barrister AM Mahbub Uddin Khokon and Barrister Shanjid Siddique appeared for the writ petitioner.