The last-minute chaos at Comilla Shilpakala Academy on Wednesday night has given rise to speculations and rumours about election engineering, with twice elected mayor Monirul Haque Sakku refusing to accept his defeat at the hands of the ruling party candidate by a close margin of 343 votes.
Sakku alleges that the results went against him due to a “phone call” that deferred the result announcement. However, Election Commission officials and Awami League leaders say Sakku’s arrival at the auditorium along with his supporters at around 8:40pm led to the mess as the rival camps started chanting slogans against one another.
Returning Officer Shahedunnabi Chowdhury on Thursday said: “I was talking to the CEC, DC and SP on the phone about the situation that had arisen due to the confrontation between the leaders and activists of the two mayoral candidates during the announcement of the results.
“No one else called me. The allegation that the results were manipulated because of a phone call is not true.”
When Sakku came to the spot, he was ahead of AL’s Arfanul Haque Rifat by 729 votes based on results from 101 out of 105 polling centres.
In 2012, Sakku stood at the mayoral polls as an independent candidate and defeated veteran Awami League leader Afzal Khan by over 35,000 votes in the first election to the city corporation. In 2017, he won against Afzal Khan’s daughter Anjum Sultana Sima by a margin of around 11,000 votes.
Sakku quit the BNP in 2012 and again last month to contest the polls as an independent candidate. This time, he was expelled from the party for life.
The COCC polls drew the attention of the whole country as it was the first test for the newly-formed Election Commission. The election was boycotted by the BNP and its allies. However, the polls were conducted in 27 wards peacefully, except for a clash at Bishnupur Government Primary School centre.
According to the results announced by Returning Officer Shahedunnabi Chowdhury, Rifat bagged 50,310 votes for the “boat” symbol. His closest rival, Sakku, secured 49,967 votes with the “table clock” symbol.
Mohammad Nizamuddin Kaiser, another independent candidate and former BNP leader, bagged 29,099 votes with the "horse" symbol.
Talking to Dhaka Tribune, Dr Nazmul Ahsan Kalimullah, chairman of Janipop – an observatory group, said: “A five-member team of our organization monitored the election. We have observed there was a grey area at the time of the final result announcement. Voting with EVMs is a smart process, but the things that happened yesterday (Wednesday) were not desirable.”
BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir on Thursday said the party had boycotted the COCC polls knowing about the results beforehand.
Addressing a discussion at the National Press Club, he said: “You saw yesterday’s election. I do not want to talk about it further…we knew earlier that these things would happen there.”
For their part, senior Awami League leaders on Thursday said it was a very competitive election, but they expected a smoother win. They also thanked the new EC for conducting the polls to the COCC, six other municipalities and 135 union parishads successfully on Wednesday.
AL General Secretary Obaidul Quader, in a statement, said that it was in character for the BNP to make elections questionable.
"With its ill motives, the BNP continues to try to question election results and the Election Commission. Thus, it has become nothing but cheating with the people of the country," he said.
“Whenever any BNP leaders take part in the polls, the party stages a drama of expelling them,” Quader added.
AL Joint General Secretary and Information and Broadcasting Minister Dr Hasan Mahmud on Thursday thanked the EC for keeping excessive surveillance on the Awami League candidates and supporters in the COCC polls.
The minister also extended thanks to Sakku, saying that he had lost the polls by a small margin. "It is difficult to accept losing by a few votes. For this, he has talked about going to court. On the other hand, we had hoped that we would win by more votes," Hasan added.
