Busy with a multitude of tasks and fielding the congratulations of well-wishers and media personnel assembled for taking interviews at the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) in Mirpur in the capital, newly-elected Chittagong City Corporation Mayor AJM Nasir Uddin was making a public appearance yesterday when I caught up with him.
He came to Dhaka on Sunday to take an oath as mayor of the CCC, and will be back in Chittagong on Thursday.
Nasir, also the vice-president of the BCB, had given a 2pm appointment time to the Dhaka Tribune at the BCB, and after just five minutes of my waiting, the newly-elected mayor of the CCC came to the room and asked: “How are you? Did you visit Chittagong during the polling time on April 28?”
I hadn’t. I am based in Dhaka and that was covered by our Chittagong bureau. Anxious to move on, I hurriedly asked him how he felt just a day before taking his oath of office.
He answered with a smile: “I’m happy, but not only for myself. This post is for all the people of Chittagong city, and I am excited to get started on the people’s work.”
He continued: “I’m the mayor of the 60 lakh people of the whole Chittagong city, not only for a platform, party, organisation, or group of people.
“My target is all the 60 lakh. This is my commitment. Already I told the city corporation’s officials, employees, other staff, and my party [Awami League] men.
“I am seeking the support and help of all quarters, not only the men and supporters of the party and its affiliated bodies,” he added.
How did he feel when his main competitor BNP-backed M Manjur Alam boycotted the polls in the middle of polling? I asked him. His response took me by surprise.
“It did not make me happy; rather, this situation made me tense. Because, after Manjur’s boycotting of the polls, many of my supporters and voters also left the polling centres. Otherwise I would have got more votes than I did.
“Moreover, he (Manjur) just announced that he was boycotting, but he did not really withdraw from the polls. The process continued. If Mr Manjur ended up with more votes than me, he would have become the mayor!” he added.
When asked about his election manifesto, the CCC boss pledged to turn Chittagong into a dream mega-city, to bring the entire city under WiFi, and to make it free from water-logging, which was the major agenda of his election manifesto.
Nasir, also general secretary of Chittagong Awami League, claimed his motivation for taking the mayoral post is to take responsibility for solving the crisis issues that face the city, adding he also joined politics for social welfare, not for his own interests.
“I will not take my salary allowance from the city corporation, and even I will not enjoy other facilities of the corporation. The CCC officials offered me the corporation’s car to come to Dhaka on Sunday to take the oath tomorrow (today). But I’ve declined that offer and came to Dhaka by my own car,” the new CCC mayor pointed out.
He appears genuinely committed to his campaign manifesto, a set of objectives that come from long previous experience in city politics.
Among the 36-point development plan in his election manifesto, Nasir has pledged to restore the city’s water bodies and form a separate committee for managing waste and digging canals from Bahaddarhat to Karnaphuli point with a sluice gate.
Previous mayors ABM Mohiuddin Chowdhury and M Manjur Alam were not able to solve the water-logging, so why does he think he will be able to?
In response, Nasir stressed the Drainage Master Plan of Chittagong 1995 to mitigate the water-logging and build Chittagong into a green and clean city.
He further said he would work to preserve hills and plants, prevent Karnaphuli river pollution, meet the increasing demand for safe drinking water, and save natural water resources.
Warming to this theme, he further promised to undertake massive income generating projects like his predecessor, subsidise student buses, and to build flats for low-income earners.
How will he implement his manifesto?
Nasir pledged to sit individually with every councillor, local person, and social worker along with urban planner to make plans, specifying the individual problems of each of the 41 wards under city corporation jurisdiction, and then to act.