AL remains sluggish while BNP rivals fight for party ticket
With the defection of BNP lawmaker Mohammad Ali Jinnah popularly known as MA Jinnah to the newly formed Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) led by former president AQM Badruddoza Chowdhury and Col (Retd) Oli Ahmed, the party in the constituency will face division over nomination. On the other hand, AL has no strong organisational activities here, local people said.
AL Chittagong (North) district unit president and former minister Engineer Mosharraf Hossain is the lone nomination seeker from the party for the polls so far.
For all latest news, follow The Daily Star's Google News channel. He lost to BNP chairperson Khaleda Zia in 1996 but won the by-election defeating Jinnah.
He, however, lost to Jinnah in 1991 and 2001 elections by narrow margin.
Engineer Mosharraf said he would win if election is held in a free and fair manner.
The party men and supporters as well as the people said winning won't be easy for AL in the constituency if it fails to make the organisation strong and intensify activities at grassroots level.
Most of them blamed upazila committee President Md Ali and General Secretary Nurul Huda for the weak organisational activities of the party.
They said Ali and Huda have been holding the posts for three consecutive times without playing any role in improving the party activities here.
Mosharraf, however, refuted the allegation.
Meanwhile, eight aspirants collected nomination forms seeking party ticket for the polls.
Jinnah said he is confident of defeating any BNP candidate, including its chairperson Khaleda Zia.
The local people, however, said Jinnah with LDP ticket will not be able to affect BNP or AL candidate.
They said rather more than one aspirants for BNP ticket will be a factor and may change the poll result.
The BNP aspirants are Mirer Sarai thana committee member Dr MM Emran Chowdhury, BNP advisory committee member Major General (Retd) ZA Khan, Prof Kamal Uddin Chowdhury, thana committee convener Dr Md Nur Nabi, Chittagong (north) district unit General Secretary Shahjahan Siraj, Karer Hat UP Chairman Delwar Hossain, thana committee member Atiqul Islam Latifi, and Jubo Dal Chittagong (north) district unit General Secretary Haji MA Kasem.
Dr Emran and Prof Kamal have already started campaign at field levels, local people said.
A number of billboards, posters and graffiti have already occupied different points at Mirsarai upazila headquarters, Baraiarhat and other areas.
Referring to Prof Kamal, Dr Nabi said a person with only business background and without any contribution to politics is unlikely to get party ticket.
Dr Emran echoed the same sentiment and is confident to getting party nomination.
"Most of the leaders and activists of almost all the units of BNP and its front organisations are with me," he said.
He said he would accept the party decision in this regard and support any person who gets the nomination.
Dr Nabi said, "All the capable leaders and activists have the right to seek party nomination. But, it would be difficult for us to accept a non-political person as candidate when many dedicated leaders are aspiring for the party ticket."
Sources said local BNP sent copies of a resolution to Chairperson Khaleda Zia, Secretary General Mannan Bhuiyan and Senior Joint Secretary General Tariq Rahman urging them to nominate a person having contribution to the party politics.
Prof Kamal said, "Madam (Khaleda) at a meeting on November 8 assured me of party ticket to contest the forthcoming election from Mirersarai."
Dr Emran and Prof Kamal blamed each other for harbouring party dissidents at different occasions.
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