Central BNP leaders throng to Gazipur for winning

Buoyed by their successes in the recently-held four city polls, opposition BNP has formed 57 committees, one in each ward, comprising central leaders, to carry out strong electioneering in Gazipur City Corporation to help their party-backed mayoral candidate MA Mannan come out winner in its polls slated for July 6. 
BNP vice chairmen, joint secretaries general, organising secretaries and other central leaders are leading the teams while BNP standing committee member ASM Hannan Shah is coordinating and monitoring the overall election campaign, Gazipur unit BNP president Fazlul Haque Milon told reporters.

Besides, BNP standing committee members and top leaders of the party’s associate bodies will also be there on the field to make sure the alliance-backed candidates, including councillors, come out winners in the election.

Milon said the 57 teams that started electioneering on Thursday are distributing leaflets, carrying out mass contacts and gearing up spirit of the party men and making people aware of election manipulation and persuading them to vote for the party-backed candidates.

In their electioneering, he said, they were mainly highlighting the government’s misrule, misdeeds, corruption, repressive acts, failures to develop Gazipur and Mannan’s 11-point election manifesto to woo the voters.

Bringing allegations that the local administration is harassing their supporters and trying to influence the elections in favour of the ruling alliance-supported candidate Ajmat Ullah Khan, Milon said they have also information that the ruling party men are preparing to manipulate the polls through intimidating the voters and flexing their muscle.

Contacted, BNP standing committee member Khandaker Mosharraf Hossain said the ruling party is making various plots to take results in their favour, but the people of Gazipur will resist their all evil designs and reject them as people in four other cities did.

Asked about his party’s strategies for the polls, the BNP leader said they have already made the government nervous enough by defeating the ruling party-blessed candidates in the four city polls. “Now we’re closely monitoring their activities and will devise our plans on their mistakes. The more the ruling party will be desperate the more they will make mistakes and we will capitalise on that.”

He said Awami League has given them apparently a walkover by forcing their rebel candidate Jahangir Alam to stay off the polls. “It’s their great mistake to pull Jahangir out of the polls which makes our victory very easier.”

Justifying his claim, Mosharraf said regional factor is very important in local body polls. Ajmat is a candidate from Tongi which has only three lakh voters while Mannan and Jahangir are from Gazipur where there are over seven lakh voters.  “The people of Gazipur usually don’t want to elect a man of Tongi as their mayor.”

He also thinks that the supporters of Jahangir will not vote for Ajmat as the ruling party forced him to quit the race using state power.

“I’ll surely win by at least a margin of two lakh votes if people can freely exercise their franchise,” MA Mannan told reporters on Friday noon.

Demanding deployment of Army for ensuring fair polls, the opposition-backed mayoral runner said people have the apprehension that the government might try to rig the vote. “Voters have got panicked as the ruling party cadres picked up Jahangir from Gazipur, took him to Dhaka and then forced him to quit the race.”

Mannan, however, hoped that people with their all strength will resist any move to manipulate the polls.

He said people will cast their votes for him in protest against the government’s all-pervasive corruption, anti-Islam stance, repression and oppression on people.