‘Paddy sheaf’ symbol won Shakhawat votes

This is what the grassroots activists of BNP and its affiliates observed throughout the polling day, as they told the Dhaka Tribune. “We are happy just to see our party participating in an election successfully after a long time,” said several grassroots workers at different polling centres. Shakhawat, who is not much known beyond his reputation as a lawyer and holds no importation position in the party, won most of his votes because he represented the BNP’s comeback in the country’s electoral system, they said. “In the last city polls [in Narayanganj], we had no candidate to campaign for. Many of us supported Ivy [who was an independent candidate in the last election]. Ivy won mainly due to votes from our people,” said Parvez Mallik, a grassroots leader of Jatiyatabadi Matsajibi Dal, a BNP affiliate. “This time we have our own candidate. We will bring a change,” he told the Dhaka Tribune. Mallik was working at Shishubagh Bidyalay polling centre in the city’s Paschim Deobhog area in the afternoon. Selina Hayat Ivy, the Awami League-backed candidate running for mayor, had cast her vote at the centre a few hours ago. Mallik was with a team of BNP activists and local leaders, all of them wearing badges depicting a paddy sheaf – BNP’s electoral symbol. The team was helping voters to find out their serial numbers on the voters’ list. The Dhaka Tribune also spoke with Delwar Hossain, a leader of Jatiyatabadi Tarun Dal, another BNP affiliate in Narayanganj, who said the local BNP members would be happy if Shakhawat managed to win 50% of the votes. “What makes us the happiest is the fact that we are here working for the BNP candidate without any fear and obstacle. It does not matter to us who the candidate is,” he said. Speaking to the Dhaka Tribune, local leaders and activists said a good number of BNP followers firmly believed that their party would make it to the city corporation because of the ruling party’s negative impression. “We have silent supporters who despise Awami League’s repression and their past records of vote rigging in elections,” said a BNP leader in the city’s Ward 17, seeking anonymity. “Some of our city and district-level leaders were unhappy when Shakhawat got the election ticket. But all of us have been instructed to work for him by the party high command. We must work for the party,” he told the Dhaka Tribune at the poll centre in Paikpara Government Primary School. However, Shakhawat could not make it to a government office this time, losing to Ivy by 79,567 votes, according to the final vote count in 174 poll centres.