EC declares BNP leader Shahadat mayor of Chattogram

The Election Commission (EC) yesterday (8 October) declared BNP leader Shahadat Hossain as the mayor of Chattogram City Corporation.

The EC issued a gazette notification in this regard, signed by EC Secretary Shafiul Azim.

Earlier, on 1 October, a Chattogram court declared Shahadat Hossain mayor-elect of the Chattogram City Corporation 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 also ordered the Election Commission to publish a gazette in this regard within 10 days.

Shahadat filed the lawsuit against the Election Commission and nine others back on 24 February 2021 during the Chattogram City Corporation 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 369,248 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.