AL-backed councillor candidates dominate Sylhet, Rajshahi city polls
Ruling Awami League-leaning councillor candidates effortlessly assert their dominance, emerging most of the triumphant in the Sylhet and Rajshahi city polls, where the fields of competition lay eerily sparse and their opponents woefully feeble as the BNP had boycotted the polls.
However, despite the BNP's stern prohibition, urging leaders and activists to abstain from elections, and expulsion of participating leaders for life, some resilient individuals of the party took part in the polls on Wednesday and have secured wins in some wards in the two cities.
61% of councillors AL-backed, 8 BNP rebels emerged winners in Rajshahi
Keep updated, follow The Business Standard's Google news channel
Awami League-backed candidates won a landslide victory by winning 61% of the councillor seats, or in 26 out of 42 wards in Sylhet, while eight rebel candidates, who were expelled from the BNP, also emerged victorious.
In addition, five Jamaat-e-Islami-backed candidates have also secured wins as well.
More than 50 local leaders of the BNP contested for the posts of councillors in Rajshahi, disobeying the party's decision to step away from all elections. Besides, at least 22 Jamaat-backed candidates were in the race.
23 councillors re-elected in Rajshahi
Twenty-three candidates, mostly local Awami League leaders, were reinstated as councillors by winning the city polls for a second consecutive term in Rajshahi.
Five among the 30 elected councillors are rebels from the BNP. The party expelled 11 leaders and activists for their involvement in various forms in Rajshahi city polls.
Among the other winners, two were independent candidates and one from the Workers' Party.
A total of seven Jamaat-backed candidates vied to be councillors and lost.
Load-shedding returns to Sylhet; situation relatively good in Rajshahi
Just the day after the polls, frequent load-shedding returned to Sylhet, with blackouts observed in several areas of the city for three to four hours on Thursday.
Earlier, the city got uninterrupted power supply during the election campaigns since 2 June, for around 15 days, till voting on Wednesday.
But power outages returned after the polls.
A senior Bangladesh Power Development Board (PDB) official said on the day of the election, urban areas were ordered to be load-shedding-free and now that the election is over, the situation has returned to normal.
However, the electricity situation was quite good in Rajshahi on Thursday, with no reports of load-shedding.
