Drama over as Saifur faces Muhit again in Sylhet-1
The Sylhet BNP's internal drama is over through putting the former finance minister Saifur Rahman again for the region's most important constituency-Sylhet-1 (City and sadar Upazila). Accordingly, Saifur's son collected party nomination form Friday midnight from the party office.
A group of Sylhet city BNP leaders yesterday afternoon went to the house of Saifur at Baharmardan in Moulvibazar to talk over election preparation.
Saifur, who defeated AL's AMA Muhit in 2001 polls by over 40,000 votes declined to run this time in the pretext of serious internal feuds while a strong faction in the district BNP took an open stance against the stalwart. They even demanded for Khaleda Zia or Dr. Zobaida Rahman in Sylhet-1 constituency.
A move from the central BNP to field former chairman of Sylhet Pourashava-AFM Kamal also failed as the former BNP leader declined. Kamal as a rebel fought the Sylhet city corporation's mayoral polls in 2003 ignoring Saifur's decision to field the then district BNP chief MA Haque.
Kamal then quitted the party while BNP also expelled him as well.
Saifur won his home constituency-Moulvibazar-3 in addition to the Sylhet 1 and then quitted the Moulvibazar seat, for his son Naser Rahman, who won the by-election. Naser is serving a jail term in the ACC filed case for ill-gotten wealth. With Saifur's candidature for Sylhet-1, there will be a fight with AL's AMA Muhit again, some commoners feel.
However, Saifur does not enjoy that popularity by now for reasons, they opined. Meanwhile, none of the 3 other BNP lawmakers in Sylhet district are with Saifur. Rather they are just on the opposite position.
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