In the bone-chilling battle between Rifat and Sakku, massive chaos was created at the results collection and serving centre of Comilla City Corporation polls on Wednesday evening.
Monirul Haque Sakku attended the result announcement centre set up at District Shilpakala Academy in the afternoon.
At the same time, some supporters of Arfanul Haque Rifat appeared to chant slogans in favour of the “boat” symbol. However, Rifat was not present there.
According to Prothom Alo, when the results of 90 out of 105 centres of Comilla City Corporation were announced, the supporters of Sakku started coming to the premises of District Shilpakala Academy.
Then they also chanted slogans in the name of Sakku
At that time, the returning officer announced that the results for the post of mayor and a few other centres are yet to be announced.
“The results of those centres are coming late. So we want to announce the results of the vote of the councilor candidates first,” he said.
Then the supporters of Sakku became agitated and started chanting slogans demanding the immediate announcement of the results.
Shortly afterwards, Sakku came there with a group of leaders and activists and sat in front of the stage.
As tensions escalated, policemen gathered inside the centre and chased away several boat supporters.
At that time, Sakku said that he would not leave the place without the result.
Asked by reporters whether he had any fears of fraud, he said: "It is possible. If not, why are they (election committee) doing this?”
Meanwhile, Chief Election Commissioner Kazi Habibul Awal said the elections to Comilla City Corporation, five municipalities and more than 120 union parishads in different districts were held in a fair and peaceful manner.
Awami League’s Rifat pulled out a victory on Wednesday defeating his closest rival former BNP leader Sakku by a margin of only 343 votes.
According to the results announced by Returning Officer Shahedunnabi Chowdhury, he bagged 50,310 votes for “boat” symbol.
The voting for Comilla City Corporation election started at 8am on Wednesday and continued till 4pm.
The counting of votes began after 4pm, immediately after the polls close.
Voters exercised their voting right in a festive atmosphere using electronic voting machines (EVMs).
However, in this election of EVM, the voters had to suffer a bit due to the slow voting in some centres.
