C T Online Desk: Jatiya Party mayoral candidate Mostafizur Rahman Mostafa on Tuesday was elected Rangpur City Corporation mayor for the second consecutive term defeating Islami Andolon Bangladesh’s Amiruzzaman with a huge margin.
According to results provided by the returning officer, Jatiya Party mayoral candidate Mostafizur Rahman Mostafa bagged 1,46,798 votes while his nearest contestant Islami Andolon Bangladesh’s Amiruzzaman bagged 49,992 votes.
Independent Latifur Rahman got 33,883 votes while the ruling Awami League’s Hosne Ara Lutfa Dalia got 22,306 votes, Abu Raihan of Bangladesh Congress bagged 10,549 votes, Khorshed Alam Khokan of Jaker Party received 5,809 votes, Shafiar Rahman of Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal (Inu) got 5,156 votes, Touhidur Rahman Mondal Raju of Khelafat Majlish bagged 2,864 votes and independent candidate Mehdi Hasan got 2,679 votes, the returning officer Abdul Baten announced on Tuesday night.
The Election Commission ended the mayoral elections for Rangpur City Corporation four hours behind schedule as polling officials struggled to operate the electronic voting machines leading to long queues of voters on Tuesday.
Many voters returned home as their fingerprints did not match the EVM, and many of the EVMs were out of order in many polling centres, witnesses said.
Speaking to reporters in Dhaka, chief election commissioner Kazi Habibul Awal said that the reasons for the delay in taking votes in the mayoral polls were high voter turnout and the mismatch of many people’s fingerprints.
Voting continued at many polling stations until 8:30pm while it was scheduled to end at 4:30pm.
Returning officer Abdul Baten said that voting continued at a few polling centres as voters arrived at 4:30pm.
The electoral law requires the polling officer to allow voters to cast their votes if they arrive at the polling station by the scheduled time.
Many voters complained that they had faced huge obstacles to casting votes due to EVMs, while others returned home without exercising their voting rights.
Speaking to reporters in the morning, JP candidate Mostafa said that he had encountered trouble casting his vote due to the malfunctioning of the EVM.
He had to stand for about half an hour at the Alamnagar College Road Government Primary School centre to cast his vote because the machine was not working when he entered the booth, Mostafa said.
‘It proved that the machine system was faulty,’ he said.
The returning officer claimed that the election was held in a peaceful and festive atmosphere.
He brushed aside the complaint of Mostafa saying that the JP mayoral candidate was trying to stir up a controversy over EVM.
‘He [JP candidate] had to wait for a few minutes before casting his vote as another voter was exercising his franchise in the booth at the time,’ Baten said.
There is no fault in the EVM system, he said, adding that some voters’ fingerprints were not matching because of dirt on their hands.
Many voters were instructed by polling officers to clean their hands with petroleum jelly or lemon.
Many of the voters found the EVM system difficult and time-consuming.
Sohel Rana, a voter at Robertsongonj High School and College compound, said that the traditional voting process was faster than EVM.
He said that EMV took a huge amount of time to cast a vote.
Another voter at ward no-1 Afrina Begum, at Jaforgonj Government Primary School compound, said that she came to the voting centre at 8:30am and had to wait for around two hours in a long queue to get her serial.
After a long wait, Afrina found her fingerprint was not matching, which further delayed her casting the vote.
The presiding officer at Robertsongonj High School and College polling centre, Abdul Hakim, said that many of the voters’ fingerprints did not match due to dense fog in the morning.
Five years ago, Mostafa was elected the second Rangpur city mayor, defeating AL candidate Sharfuddin Ahamed Jhantu.
On December 20, 2012, the first-ever Rangpur city polls were held, in which AL-backed Sharfuddin was elected as the first mayor.
