Mohammad Al-Masum Molla

Both the Awami League and the BNP will give their best to win the upcoming Dhaka North City Corporation mayoral by-polls after their election debacle in Rangpur.

The humiliating defeat of the Awami League mayoral candidate in the Rangpur City Corporation polls has stunned the local leaders and activists of the party.

Newly elected Rangpur City Corporation (RCC) Mayor Mostafizar Rahman Mostafa said he will prioritise maintaining a good relationship with the government for the development of Rangpur.

Jatiya Party mayoral candidate Mostafizar Rahman Mostafa is leading by a wide margin in Rangpur City Corporation polls held peacefully amid tight security yesterday. According to the unofficial results from all the 193 polling centres, Mostafa got 1,60,489 votes. His nearest rival from the ruling Awami League Sharfuddin Ahmed Jhantu bagged 62,400 votes while BNP candidate Kawsar Zaman Babla secured 35,136 votes.

All eyes are on Rangpur today as Awami League, BNP and Jatiya Party are set to fight the battle of ballots to win the mayoral race.

The electoral battle for Rangpur mayor is crucial for the Awami League, BNP and Jatiya Party as they see the polls from different perspectives.

The by-polls to Dhaka North City Corporation's mayoral post will be held in the last week of February. Elections to the newly included 36 wards in two Dhaka city corporations are slated to be held with the by-polls, the Election Commission said yesterday.

It was sometime in mid-August of 1971. The Pakistan occupation forces continued its atrocities in the then East Pakistan, now Bangladesh. In the Haor region, encompassing Sunamganj, Habiganj, Kishoreganj and Netrakona, the marauding army was using the Bheramohona River on Sherpur-Ajmiriganj route to supply arms and ammunition to different places.

We call them our martyred intellectuals. But these brightest sons and daughters of the soil are not recognised as freedom fighters. Their names are not even included in any government record. Worse, 46 years after independence, the government has yet to make a final list of the intellectuals who were victims of such targeted killing in the final hours of the 1971 Liberation War.

We all love our cell phone, computer and TV and depend heavily on them in our day-to-day life. But each of these electronic equipment eventually reaches the end of its life and is replaced by a new one.

Dhaka North City Corporation mayoral election may face legal complications as polls for councillors in 18 wards annexed to the corporation in July remain pending, experts said.

Following the death of Annisul Huq, the Awami League and its archrival BNP are having intra-party informal discussions to pick their best contender for the post of the Dhaka north mayor.

The army is unlikely to get back the power to arrest anyone for violating electoral laws on the polling day.

The Election Commission has decided in principle to use CCTV cameras and electronic voting machines (EVM) at a few polling stations during the upcoming Rangpur City Corporation polls.

As part of its plan to complete providing smart NID cards to all voters by December next year, the Election Commission will go for a massive scale-distribution in 32 districts in the first week of next month.

A number of ministers yesterday demanded stricter monitoring of the activities of the local and international NGOs operating in Bangladesh. They also called for scrutinising the earnings and expenditures of the non-governmental organisations, alleging that some of those provoke workers to create chaos.

With the next national polls a year away, the ruling Awami League is scaling up its organisational activities while the BNP is focused on drumming up support for a non-partisan election-time government.

While the BNP sticks to its demand for holding the next national elections under a non-partisan polls-time government, the ruling Awami League insists the elections will be conducted as per constitutional provisions.

Opposition BNP plans to stage a huge showdown tomorrow by organising a rally but did not get the formal permission to that end from the authorities concerned as of last night.

Lawmakers from Commonwealth countries have committed their full support for Bangladesh in resolving the Rohingya crisis. The commitment came yesterday after Dhaka briefed them on the issue during the annual conference of Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (CPA) in the capital.