Awami League candidate Rezaul Karim Chowdhury has been unofficially elected Mayor of Chattogram City Corporation election. He got 3 lakh 69 thousand 248 votes. The nearest rival BNP candidate Shahadat Hossain got 52,489 votes.
When the results of 733 out of 735 polling stations were declared, Rezaul Karim Chowdhury won by a margin of 3 lakh 16 thousand 759 votes. Voting in the remaining two centers was suspended. The results were declared at 1.40am on Wednesday (January 27) from the results collection and serving center set up at Chattogram MA Aziz Stadium Gymnasium in the city.
Earlier, voting started at 8 am on Wednesday and continued till 4 pm.
Allegations of various irregularities including firing, chase-counter chase, clash-violence, loss of life, vandalism of electronic voting machine (EVM) and boycott were held at some of the polling centers in the election.
Despite allegations of irregularities in the election by BNP, the ruling Awami League termed the poll as festive. The electoral officials also said the vote was peaceful. Then the counting of votes begins.
Rezaul Karim Chowdhury became involved in politics in 1967 as a general student of Bangladesh Chhatra League by filling up a form. He was the organizing secretary of Chattogram College Chhatra League in 1969-1970 and acting general secretary in 1970-1971. As a student he participated in the war of liberation.
Freedom fighter Rezaul Karim was born in 1953 in the Bahardar family, a traditional and ancient zamindar clan of East Sholashahar ward of Chandgaon police station in Chattogram. His father, the late Harun-ur-Rashid Chowdhury, was a high-ranking government official and his grandfather Saleh Ahmed was a well-known lawyer in Chattogram during the British rule in Indian sub-continent and one of the founders of the now defunct Comrade Bank in Chattogram during the British rule. He played an important role in the Pakistan movement and the independence movement of Bangladesh.