Saifur Rahman Sohag and Zakir Hossain were elected president and general secretary, respectively, of Bangladesh Chhatra League’s central committee at its 28th council yesterday.
A total of 40 candidates ran for the two posts while 213 candidates withdrew nomination papers during the election period.
Sohag, 29, is currently doing his e-MBA at Dhaka University. He completed a Master’s degree in language science. Zakir, 24, is a Master’s student of political science.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina approved the newly elected Chhatra League five-member central committee elected by councillors.
The five-member committee consists of President Saifur Rahman Sohag, General Secretary Zakir Hossain, Senior Vice President Ajijul Haq Rana, Joint Secretary Asaduzzaman Nadim and Organising Secretary Mobarak Hossain. Mostafizur Rahman Mustak, the chief election commissioner, confirmed the poll results to the Dhaka Tribune. The official announcement was not made last night.
President of the previous committee HM Bodiuzzaman Shohag and former general secretary Siddique Nazmul Alam monitored the election that began at 11:30am and continued until 5:30pm at the Institute of Engineers, Bangladesh.
Awami League Joint General Secretary Jahangir Kabir Nanak, Organising Secretary Khalid Mahmud Chowdhury, former Chhatra League secretary Nazrul Islam Babu supervised the event.
Of the 3,138 councillors, a total of 2,819 from around 105 organisational units cast their votes in a transparent ballot box to choose the president and the general secretary for the next two years. As many as 319 councillors were absent.
The Sohag-Zakir panel was declared unofficially on Saturday night.
Since morning, thousands of Chhatra League activists started joining the closing day of the council and chanted slogans in favour of Sohag and Zakir. No one was found shouting for other candidates.
PM Sheikh Hasina inaugurated the council of her party’s student body on Saturday and asked the councillors to elect their leaders from among regular and meritorious students.
The outgoing committee was formed through election on July 11, 2011, for two years, as per the organisation’s constitution. Seven candidates contested the post of president while 16 vied for the general secretary position.
Talking to the Dhaka Tribune, the newly-elected BCL president said: “I will follow the path of Bangabandhu.”
On the other hand, Zakir expressed gratitude to the prime minister and vowed to work to implement the dreams of PM Sheikh Hasina.
