BNP mayoral candidate files case demanding re-election in Chittagong

Dr Shahadat Hossain, mayoral candidate of Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) for the just-concluded Chittagong City Corporation (CCC) polls filed a case with the Election Tribunal in Chittagong, demanding re-election through declaring a new schedule.

Citing election fraud, Shahadat filed the case with the court of First Joint Session Judge and Judge of the Election Tribunal Khairul Amin on Wednesday noon.

A total of nine people including Chief Election Commissioner (CEC), Election Commission Secretary, CCC Mayor Rezaul Karim Chowdhury, Chittagong Regional Election Officer, and CCC Returning Officer Mohammad Hasnuzzaman were made accused in the case.

The plaintiff’s counsel Enamul Haque said that the court accepted the case and fixed March 15 as the next day for the case proceedings.

According to the case documents, instead of providing the printed copy of the EVM or polls results, the EC provided hand-written result sheets. This makes it abundantly clear that the polls results were manipulated. The case documents also said the defendants, in collusion with one another, defeated the BNP mayoral candidate in the polls.   

The CCC polls were held on January 27, where Awami League-nominated mayoral candidate Rezaul Karim Chowdhury won after bagging 369,248 votes. BNP-nominated mayoral candidate Dr Shahadat Hossain bagged 52,489 votes.

This time 22.49 percent vote was cast at the CCC polls.