The ruling Awami League has won Dhaka-18 and Sirajganj-1 by-election. The boat candidates have won the two seats by a huge margin of votes. Awami League candidate Mohammad Habib Hasan defeated BNP candidate SM Jahangir in Dhaka-18. On the other hand, Sirajganj-1 seat, Awami League's Tanvir Shakil Joy defeated BNP candidate Md. Selim Reza.
Voting was held on Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) on Thursday from 8am to 4pm. However, the BNP has rejected the two-seat by-election on allegations of vote rigging.
Election Commission (EC) Senior Secretary Md. Alamgir said the voting was peaceful everywhere. He didn't get any bad news or complaints from anywhere. He further said that I did not see in the media that there was a clash at the polling station or there was any disturbance at the polling station leading to closing of vote centers. I did not see any such incident. BNP's allegation is very common.
In the Dhaka-18 by-election, Habib Hasan won bagging 65,620 votes. His nearest rival BNP candidate SM Jahangir Hossain got 5,369 votes. 14.18 percent votes were cast in the election. Out of 5,77,116 votes, a total of 81,618 votes were cast.
Sirajganj District Election Officer Abul Hossain said Tanvir Shakil got 69,748 votes for boat as a result of all 56 centers in 5 unions of Sadar upazila. His nearest rival Selim Reza got 334 votes for each sheaf of paddy. The total number of votes here is 1 lakh 49 thousand 573. On the other hand, the results of all the 113 centers of Kazipur Municipality and 12 Unions got 1 lakh 18 thousand 579 votes. The rival BNP candidate got 134 votes for sheaf of paddy.
The Sirajganj-1 seat became vacant on June 1 with the death of former health minister and Awami League MP Mohammad Nasim. On the other hand, the Dhaka-18 seat became vacant on July 9 with the death of former Home Minister and Awami League MP Sahara Khatun.