BNP leader Shahadat to take oath as Chattogram city mayor on 3 Nov
Earlier, on 1 October, the court of Electoral Tribunal and the Joint District and Sessions Judge Mohammad Khairul Amin declared Shahadat Hossain mayor-elect of the CCC
BNP leader Shahadat Hossain, who was declared the mayor-elect of Chattogram City Corporation (CCC) in line with a court order, is set to be sworn in on 3 November.
The oath will be administered by the Adviser to the Ministry of Local Government, Rural Development and Cooperatives AF Hassan Ariff in the Local Government Division's (LGD) conference room in Dhaka, according to an office order signed by LGD Deputy Secretary Mahbuba Ireen.
The ministry also asked Shahadat to submit his affidavit and wealth statement to the LGD.
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Earlier, on 1 October, the court of Electoral Tribunal and the Joint District and Sessions Judge Mohammad Khairul Amin declared Shahadat Hossain mayor-elect of the CCC after he filed a lawsuit seeking cancellation of the election results over vote rigging.
The court also ordered the Election Commission to publish a gazette in this regard within 10 days.
On 8 October, the Election Commission issued a gazette notification declaring Shahadat Hossain as the mayor, replacing M Rezaul Karim Chowdhury.
Later, on 17 October, the Ministry of Local Government, Rural Development and Cooperatives issued a revised notification excluding Chattogram from a previous notification issued on 19 August on the removal of all mayors of city corporations.
Shahadat filed the lawsuit against the Election Commission and nine others back on 24 February 2021 during the CCC election.
In the lawsuit, he made allegations of election rigging and sought to cancel the results.
The defendants in the case included recently removed Chattogram mayor M Rezaul Karim Chowdhury, regional election officer, secretary to the election commissioner, and chief election commissioner, among others.
The case documents stated that Chattogram City Corporation officials began coordinating with Rezaul Karim just after the allocation of the "boat" symbol.
"This suggests that the election day was merely a formality. For this reason, a vote tally has still not been provided. No printed copies from the EVMs were distributed from any polling station," reads the document.
"By afternoon of the election day, only 4-6% of the votes had been cast. However, the election results showed that 22% of the votes had been cast," it added.
As per the official election results, the "boat" candidate Rezaul Karim Chowdhury won with 3,69,248 votes in the election held on 27 January 2021.
His closest competitor, BNP mayoral candidate Shahadat Hossain, received 52,489 votes under the "sheaf of paddy" symbol.
