AL shocked

The results of the prestige battle in four city corporations came as a shock for the ruling Awami League as all its candidates suffered heavy defeat before their BNP-backed rivals.
Talking to The Daily Star last night, some AL leaders said they now needed some soul searching to find out the reasons behind the debacle and do some mending before the upcoming parliamentary elections.
They also said the win would give the BNP-led opposition alliance political mileage at a time when both camps were at loggerheads over the formation of a polls-time government.
"It is obvious that the BNP will be in a better position in the four city corporation areas in the next parliamentary election," AL Joint General Secretary Mahbubul Alam Hanif told this correspondent last night.
Khaled Mahmud Chowdhury, one of the organising secretaries of AL, echoed Hanif's view.
Both of them said they would search for the reasons behind their defeat.
"We should now fix the loopholes in our activities, if any, in the next five months before the parliamentary polls," AL MP Abdul Mannan said.
"The defeat is a lesson for us."
Before the election results started to emerge, AL Presidium Member Obaidul Quader, said: "The party that will face defeat in the city polls will get a warning ahead of the parliamentary elections."
Quader, also communications minister, was talking to reporters after inaugurating a rail-crossing flyover in Comilla.
Veteran AL leader Amir Hossain Amu said, "The elections were held in a very free and fair manner without the administration's interference. The fair election has also proved that the opposition's apprehension of polls rigging was totally baseless.”
Anisul Islam Mahmud, a presidium member of the Jatiya Party, a component of the AL-led grand alliance, said the alliance now needed to think afresh in the light of the polls results.
AL MP Habibun Nahar, wife of Talukder Abdul Khaleque, said propaganda against her husband had caused his defeat in the polls in Khulna. "We will have to pay for the defeat in the next national polls."

PM'S REMARKS
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina yesterday said voters in the four city corporations cast their ballots in a free and peaceful manner, something that had rarely happened in the past.
She made the comment while addressing the 27th founding anniversary of the Special Security Force at her office, reports UNB.
"Now people can cast their votes freely," said Hasina, who is also AL chief.
When she returned to Bangladesh in 1981, "the situation was not like this,” she said. “At that time, elections meant vandalism by hooligans."