Rezaul Karim elected Chittagong City mayor

Awami League-backed Rezaul Karim Chowdhury has become the new mayor of Chittagong City Corporation, winning Wednesday's election with 369,284 votes.

His closest contender BNP mayoral candidate Dr Shahadat Hossain managed to bag 52,429 votes.

Returning Officer Md Hasanuzzaman declared the unofficial result of the mayoral race at 2am on election night after counting votes through the day.

Results of 733 centres of 735 were declared from the Election Commission’s temporary control room set up at MA Aziz Stadium in the port city.

However, polling was suspended in two centres. 

The highly anticipated CCC polls ended Wednesday afternoon with overwhelming reports of electoral violence resulting in two casualties, clashes, chases and counter-chases, vote suspension, and assault on polling agents.

BNP candidate Dr Shahadat Hossain, who cast his vote at the Teachers’ Training College, alleged that BNP polling agents were driven away from the centres as soon as the polling began.

Other than Awami League’s Rezaul and BNP’s Shahadat, five other candidates contended for the mayoral post.

Among other mayoral candidates, MA Matin of Bangladesh Islamic Front got 2,126 votes with candle symbol, Abul Manzoor of National People's Party (NPP) got 4,653 votes with mango symbol, Md Jannatul Islam of Islamic Andolon Bangladesh got 4,980 votes with hand fan symbol, Waheed Murad of Islamic Front Bangladesh got 1,109 votes with the chair symbol and Khokon Chowdhury got 885 votes with the elephant symbol as an independent candidate.