AL Mayor nominee Dalia loses security deposit in Rangpur

Awami League flag

Jehangir Hussain

Hosne Ara Lutfa Dalia stunned the voters of Rangpur city twice, first by getting ruling Awami League’s nomination to contest the mayoral polls and days later following her humiliating defeat by Jatiya Party's Mostafizur Rahman Mostafa on Tuesday.

Mostafa won the polls getting six times more votes than Dalia.

Dalia lost her security deposit.

Barely 24 hours after the polls, AL leaders began analysing the reasons of Dalia’s humiliating defeat.

According to the local AL leaders and activists, the main reason of Dalia’s defeat was wrong selection of candidate by ruling AL.

Inner conflicts in the ruling party’s Rangpur city and district committees  sank ‘Boat’ they think.

Of those, City AL President Shafiur Rahman Shafi, General Secretary Tushar Kanti Mondal, Rangpur Chamber’s former President and City AL’s Vice President Abul Kashem, Rangpur Metropolitan Chamber President Rezaul Islam Milon, City Swechchhasebak League President Ataur Rahman Babu, Rangpur City Jatiya Shramik League General Secretary MA Mazid, District AL General Secretary Rezaul Karim Raju would be better candidates, though they also would find it difficult to take ‘Boat’ to the shore in Jatiya Party’s stronghold, due also to Awami League’s long rule with so many question marks.

An AL leader admitted that Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina took the  decision to nominate Dalia to skirt ‘conflicts among the party’s local leaders.

“If any one of persons mentioned above, was nominated, the situation might have no better and violence would ensue, only to avert the situation, Sheikh Hasina nominated Dalia,” they said.

In 2014, Dalia was elected MP from a reserved seat. She is a  central executive committee member of Awami League and Vice President of district AL.

In Tuesday’s mayoral polls, Dalia was defeated in her own polling centre, bagging  only 92 votes.

Her opponent Mostafa got 166 votes in her polling centre while Awami League’s rebel candidate Latifur Rahman Milon got 144 votes.

Due to inner conflicts, Rangpur district AL President Mamtaz Uddin Ahmed was removed few days ago. Mamtaz was not even aware about his removal.

Only recently, City AL President Shafiur Rahma Shafi and General Secretary Tushar Mondal got involved in open quarrels.

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