AL worried over turnout in Rajshahi
Turnout in today's polls remains a concern for the camp of the Awami League mayor candidate in Rajshahi city.
Intra-party rivalry between AL candidate AHM Khairuzzaman Liton and Rajshahi City AL General Secretary Dablu Sarkar have heightened the concern, party insiders said.
The AL nominee, however, said that they have devised an elaborate plan to increase turnout and ensure maximum votes for "boat", his electoral symbol.
The party activists would work to take voters to the polling stations, Liton told The Daily Star yesterday.
He said his supporters made door-to-door visits to urge the voters to exercise their franchise.
Nurul Islam Sarkar Aslam, chief election agent for Liton, said the city AL organised at least 200 meetings with voters from all sections of the society, including marginalised communities, to encourage them to go to the polling centres.
"Though there is no strong rival for Liton, we didn't take the electioneering lightly," he told The Daily Star.
He said they expect that the turnout would be at least 65 percent.
With the BNP staying away from the election, Liton, also an AL presidium member, anticipates that the supporters of the opposition party and Jamaat-e-Islami would show up at the policing centres to vote for their favourite councillor candidates.
"If the supporters of the BNP and the Jamaat vote for other mayor candidates, it might make victory difficult for me," he said.
Abdul Hamid Sarker Tekon, a five-time councillor of ward-22 and also the elder brother of Dablu Sarkar, alleged that despite being the general secretary of the city AL, his brother was left out of Liton's electoral campaign.
Attempts were made to show Dablu Sarkar as an anti-Liton politician, he added.
"Despite all these obstacles, my brother is working independently to ensure the victory of the Awami League candidate," said Tekon, who is running for councillor.
Asked about the reason for the exclusion of Dablu Sarkar from electioneering, the AL nominee said that they received several complaints against him.
"Some senior party leaders had raised concern about involving him in polls campaigns as a scandalous video clip of him went viral on social media. We wanted to avoid controversies in our electoral activities as it could potentially have a negative impact on the polls results," Liton said.
Nawsher Ali, a key person in Liton's campaign team and also the city AL vice-president, said even though a party rebel ran in the 2008 mayoral election, he could not bag more than 5,000 votes. Liton won that election by a significant margin.
State Minister for Foreign Affairs Mohammad Shahriar Alam, local lawmakers Omor Faruk Chowdhury, and Ayeen Uddin, city and district AL general secretaries Dablu Sarkar, and Kazi Abdul Wadud Dara, and Mir Iqbal, chairman of Rajshahi Zilla Parishad, are known as opponents of Liton in the ruling party.
Mir Iqbal said, "We must vote for 'boat' without thinking about who has been given the party ticket."
Asked if their supporters would go to the polling stations to vote for the AL candidate, he told The Daily Star that they would do it for sure.
Jatiya Party mayoral candidate Saiful Islam Swapan said he had expected that the polls to Barishal and Khulna city corporations would be free and fair, "but that did not happen".
"The situation in Rajshahi could be the same," he told this newspaper yesterday.
Four candidates are running for mayor while 112 are vying for the 30 posts of general ward councillors and 46 candidates are running for 10 reserved councilor seats for women in today's polls to Rajshahi City Corporation.
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