Chattogram court declares BNP leader Shahadat as city mayor-elect

A Chattogram court has declared BNP leader and mayoral candidate Dr Shahadat Hossain mayor-elect of the Chattogram City Corporation (CCC) after he filed a lawsuit seeking cancellation of the election results over "vote rigging." 

The court of Electoral Tribunal and the Joint District and Sessions Judge Mohammad Khairul Amin issued the verdict around noon today (1 October).  

The court also ordered the Election Commission to publish a gazette in this regard within the next ten days, said advocate Arshad Hossain Asad, representing the plaintiff. 

Dr 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 the recently removed CCC mayor, M Rezaul Karim Chowdhury, the regional election officer, the secretary to the election commissioner, and the chief election commissioner, among others. 

None of their lawyers were present in court today. 

The case documents stated that CCC 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 the 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 369,248 votes in the CCC election held on 27 January 2021. 

His closest competitor, BNP mayoral candidate Shahadat Hossain, received 52,489 votes under the "sheaf of paddy" symbol.