Photo : Messenger
Ekramul Hoque Titu has been elected as the mayor of Mymensingh City Corporation (MCC) for the second straight time, while Cumilla City Corporation has got its first ever female mayor as Tahseen Bahar Shuchona has won the mayoral race unofficially.
Titu recorded a landslide victory in MCC election as he defeated his nearest rival Sadequl Hoque Khan Milky by a mammoth margin of more than one lakh vote, while Shuchona defeated her nearest rival Monirul Hoque Sakku by a big margin in CCC polls on Saturday.
In MCC election, Ekramul Hoque Titu bagged 137851 votes while his nearest rival Sadequl Hoque Khan Milky got 34781 votes.
Notably, this was the count available as election results from 127 out of a total of 128 centres under the MCC.
In the CCC polls, Farhad Hossain, returning officer, announced the unofficial results of the elections in the evening at the Zilla School auditorium in the city.
Shuchona, daughter of Cumilla-6 (Sadar) lawmaker and president of Cumilla city unit Awami League AKM Baha Uddin Bahar, became victorious in the Cumilla mayoral by-polls with 'Bus' symbol, defeating her nearest rival Monirul Hoque Sakku by 21,993 votes.
Shuchona secured 48,890 votes while ex-mayor as well as expelled BNP leader Sakku bagged 26,897 votes.
Another expelled BNP leader Nizam Uddin Kaiser secured 13,155 votes while another mayoral candidate Noor-ur Rahman Mahmud Tanim got 5,173 votes.
The voting started at 8am in Cumilla using electronic voting machines (EVMs).
Meanwhile, the Election Commission (EC) has said that voting in more than 200 local government units, including Mymensingh and Cumilla city corporations and several municipalities, has been largely free, fair and peaceful, barring a few untoward incidents,
As many as 53 people were arrested in 18 such incidents, Chief Election Commissioner Kazi Habibul Awal said at a media briefing at the commission headquarters in Dhaka on Saturday afternoon.
“Some untoward incidents occurred before the voting ended peacefully at 4pm. Some mentionable incidents took place in Cumilla,” he said.
“The elections were free, fair and peaceful. We haven’t received any complaints. A shooting incident occurred outside a centre in Cumilla. There was a stabbing too, but voting inside the centre was not affected,” Awal said.
Election Commissioner Md Anisur Rahman said all the candidates in Cumilla used muscle power and there were incidents of voters being barred from going to the centres.
The law-enforcing agencies were ordered to arrest any people involved in violence and irregularities, Anisur said. “We didn’t receive any complaints after the agencies took the situation under control.”
Election Commissioner Md Alamgir said the incidents outside the polling stations were “insignificant considering the situation of Bangladesh’s local government polls”.
The commission estimates the turnout will be around 50 percent on an average in the two city corporations. The turnout was about 35 percent in Cumilla until 3pm and 49 percent in Mymensingh until 3:30pm.
Another Election Commissioner, Ahsan Habib Khan, said the rate of voting indicated the turnout would be 60 percent in Amtoli municipality in Barguna and 50 percent in Patuakhali.
“The elections were festive, as we expected. No centre was closed,” he said.
Messenger/Fameema
