BNP bags 8 votes in 4 centres

In Wednesday's Chattogram City Corporation (CCC) elections, the BNP-backed mayoral candidate bagged merely eight votes in four centres near the party office at Kazir Dewri.

The polling centres are located within 100 yards of the home of Abdullah Al Noman, a BNP standing committee member.

At the women centre # 1 in Kazir Dewri Government Primary Girls School, BNP's Dr Shahadat Hossain received only one vote, while ruling party Awami League's mayoral candidate Rezaul Karim bagged 215 votes.

BNP's mayoral candidate Manzur Alam secured 385 votes in the 2015 elections, while AL-backed AJM Nasir Uddin 1,070 votes.

Manzur bagged 913 votes in the 2010 elections, while AL's ABM Mohiuddin Chowdhury received 656 votes at Kazir Dewri Government Primary Girls School.

At women centre #2 of the same school, the BNP candidate received only two votes, with his AL contender receiving 119 votes.

At the same centre, Manzur received 193 votes and Nasir received 409 votes in the 2015 election.

In Wednesday's election at the men's centre of Peer Mohammad Government Primary School in the same area, the BNP candidate got only two votes and Rezaul Karim Chowdhury 350 votes.

In the mayoral election in 2015 at the same centre, Manzur Alam got 414 votes and AJM Nasir Uddin got 722 votes.

There is another polling station 50 yards north of the BNP office.

Shahadat Hossain got only three votes in this men's centre, called Government National Primary School, while Rezaul Karim Chowdhury bagged 350 votes.

But in 2015 at the same centre, Manzur got 479 votes and Nasir 650 votes.

This data emerged after an analysis of the unofficial results of Wednesday's elections, published by the returning office.

The results have sparkled ridicule from a cross-section of people in the port city.

Dr Shahadat Hossain said that these centre-based results are a testament of the type of elections that were held.

"Some over-eager police officers kicked out our agents. The armed ruling party leaders took their positions and barred legitimate voters from entering polling centres.

"Once again, the cadres used the fingerprints of those who entered the centres to press the buttons on the electronic voting machines. Nothing more can be expected from the situation. What happened was no surprise."