Liton's curious clean sweep
Awami League leader AHM Khairuzzaman Liton, who was officially declared Rajshahi mayor yesterday, remained triumphant at all the vote centres in Rajshahi city, raising many eyebrows.
Liton won at all 138 polling centres, in an election marked by allegations of illegal stuffing of ballot papers, ruling party men taking control over vote centres, and hindering visits of journalists by presiding officers and law enforcers.
The scenario was different in the two previous city elections. In the 2013 election, Liton managed to win in only four polling centres out of 137. In the 2008 election, he won at 113 out of 129 centres.
The Rajshahi Satellite Town High School vote centre at Uposhohor where Liton voted witnessed the lowest turnout -- 42.66 percent. Out of 1587 voters, only 677 turned out at the centre.
The 910 voters who did not vote there include Liton's main opponent, BNP's Mosaddek Hossain Bulbul, who refused to vote in protest against the irregularities in the election.
At least 14 centres in the city witnessed turnouts between 42 and 65 percent.
At the just-concluded election, half of the vote centres saw turnouts of above 80 percent while 10 centres saw more than 90 percent turnout.
At Nagarpara Government Primary School, voter turnout was the highest -- 97.20 percent, while the neighbouring vote centre at Golzarbagh Government Primary School saw 96.77 percent turnout, and Kasiadanga Government Primary School centre saw 91.69 percent turnout.
This correspondent spoke to some of the councillor candidates of the ward to find out possible reasons behind the high turnout.
“It is the people who voted, making the turnout high,” said Awami League leader Nazrul Islam who won at ward 2.
Runa Khatun, who lost at the reserved woman councillor post in the ward, broke down in tears.
“No one in the administration kept their word,” she said.
“If the administration had to make their candidate of choice win, why did they let us spend our hard-earned money for the election?” she questioned.
Runa said she saw how election officials and law enforcers helped local touts to buy votes and stuff ballots illegally.
At Kasiadanga centre, 2371 voters out of 2586 cast their votes. Of those who cast their votes for choosing their mayor, 94 voters refrained from voting for general councillor while 7 did not vote to choose woman councillor, the returning officer's results show.
A similar picture, of voters refraining from voting for councillor and woman councillor despite voting for the mayor, was found at eight centres.
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