Mayoral candidates for the Sylhet City Corporation (SCC) election have been continuing to give the waterlogging problem of the city the top priority in their full-fledged election campaigns.
Both Awami League and BNP-backed candidates are offering promises to the electorate that they would recover the 11 major canals of the city from the land grabbers and encroachers to quickly resolve the waterlogging problem.
Waterlogging has been a source of immense woes for the city-dwellers for a long time. To alleviate the problem the SCC authorities undertook a project worth Tk110m in April 2010. It was inaugurated by Finance Minister AMA Muhith and initially removed some illegal infrastructures and made some excavations in line with the goal of the project.
However, shortly afterwards, illegal land grabbers and influential encroachers started to obstruct the project with support from some of the ward councilors, sources said. Consequently, the SCC officials suspended the project.
The incumbent Mayor and ruling party backed candidate Badar Uddin Ahmed Kamran claimed that he had done enough to resolve the waterlogging problem of the city and made reference to the suspended project. He also claimed that the project has been completed and it helped, to some extent, reduce the waterlogging problem.
On the other hand, BNP backed mayoral candidate Ariful Haque Choudhury termed the project “a vast gala of corruption” led by the incumbent mayor.
“The Mayor and ruling party men looted money from the project in the name of recovering canals, while public sufferings remained the same,” Ariful Haque alleged.
The BNP-backed candidate, meanwhile, vowed to initiate a highly planned project to solve this problem if he was elected in the SCC poll, scheduled to be held on June 15.
Sources said, as the SCC poll is going to be held in the rainy season the waterlogging problem has become the prime consideration of both the mayoral candidates. The candidates were pursuing the electorate to make them believe that they would eradicate waterlogging from the city if they were elected.
Meanwhile, Advocate EU Shahidul Islam, a prominent citizen of the city and former president of the district Bar Association said people would not believe the candidates until they present a reliable and practical roadmap to take immediate measures to remove the waterlogging.
Terming it “the principal problem” of the city, he said the candidate who would be considered by the people as capable for eradicating waterlogging would be elected as Mayor this year.