Hero Alom’s agent or Swechchhasebak League leader?

A man was seen inside booth-2 of the polling centre at Manarat International School and College during the ongoing Dhaka-17 by-polls, and when asked, he said he was a leader of Swechchhasebak League, the volunteer wing of the ruling Awami League.

When The Daily Star's reporter followed up by asking him what he was doing inside the booth, the man, Humayun Kabir, had no reply.

Another polling agent, who was sitting next to Humayun, insisted that Humayun was a polling agent of independent candidate Ashraful Alom aka Hero Alom.

The reporter then asked Humayun the name of his candidate and his electoral symbol, but he could not reply even then.

Seemingly confused about why he was there, Humayun came out of the polling booth and asked another man whether he knew whose polling agent he was supposed to be.

"You are working as an agent of Hero Alom," said the person, who was wearing a boat badge, the electoral symbol of AL.

Many people wearing the boat badge, working for ruling-party candidate Mohammad A Arafat, were seen walking around inside and outside polling booths, violating the electoral code of conduct.

Sushanto Kumar Sarkar, presiding officer of the polling centre, said they could not enter the polling booth wearing a badge bearing any electoral symbol.

He later instructed members of law enforcement agencies not to allow anyone to enter the booths wearing the badges.

While visiting three other polling booths of this centre, this correspondent also saw people introducing themselves as agents of Hero Alom but initially they could not tell the electoral symbol of their candidate.