Victory will be ours: Atiqul

Awami League mayor candidate for Dhaka North City Corporation (DNCC) Atiqul Islam spent a busy day yesterday, meeting party members and preparing for the election.

As part of the preparation, Atiqul went to the residence of the present chief coordinator of AL camp for Dhaka north, Tofail Ahmed, in Banani around 11am.

Talking to journalists, Tofail said AL will cooperate with the Election Commission so that a free and fair election can be held today.

Atiqul informed journalists that they were assigning polling agents at the voting centers and all necessary arrangements will be completed by the end of the day.

From there, he went to Banani Jame Masjid for Juma prayers and visited the graves of his parents and former DNCC mayor Annisul Huq in Banani.

While talking to journalists near the mosque, he said he was confident of a win. He also agreed with Prime Minister’s ICT Affairs Adviser Sajeeb Wazed Joy, who recently predicted on social media through a survey that Awami League will win the two Dhaka city election today by a huge margin.

“We have been campaigning since January 10. We received huge responses from people from all strata of life. The result (of the survey) matched with the observations we had during campaigns,” he said.

“Wherever I went, I saw the love people showed for ‘boat’. We are cent percent sure that we will win,” Atiqul said.

He also said apart from a handful of incidents, the overall electoral environment was satisfactory. “Crores of people live in Dhaka. Therefore, a few such incidents would take place,” he added.

“Throughout the campaign, party leaders and supporters were on the field. We all went to voters to seek their support. Seeing the participation and support of people, I have come to realise that victory will be ours,” he added.

“Every vote counts… I request everyone to go to the polling centres today and cast their votes in a peaceful manner,” Atiqul said.

In the afternoon, Atiqul visited Road Transport and Bridges Minister Obaidul Quader at Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University.

He is scheduled to cast his vote along with family members around 8am today at Nawab Habibullah Model School and College voting centre in Uttara-4.

On January 26, Atiqul rolled out a 38-point election manifesto with a focus on combatting air pollution and the mosquito menace.

He also pledged to implement the Integrated Vector Management system to effectively tackle the mosquito menace round the year with the help of the health ministry, Wasa, DSCC and other nearby city corporations.

He unveiled the manifesto with three segments -- Modern Dhaka, Healthy Dhaka and Vibrant Dhaka.