There were complaints all night from Keraniganj: Gayeshwar Chandra Roy
BNP Standing Committee member and candidate for the Dhaka–3 (part of Keraniganj) constituency, Gayeshwar Chandra Roy, cast his vote at the Arakul Government Primary School polling centre in South Keraniganj, Dhaka. He exercised his franchise at around 8:00am today, Thursday.
After voting, Gayeshwar Chandra Roy told journalists, “For 17 long years, people were unable to vote. Today they are able to cast their ballots. We want every voter to come to the polling centre and exercise their right to vote. The BNP has made significant contributions to establishing voting rights. Many mothers have lost their sons; the blood of countless young men has been shed.”
This BNP leader alleged, “Although it is unfortunate, we received complaints throughout last night, Wednesday, in Keraniganj. At 10:00pm, 12:00am and even 1:00am, particularly supporters of the Jamaat-e-Islami candidate entered polling centres. As of this moment, they have not been able to remove them from the Jinjira PM Pilot High School centre. Why they have failed to do so, what the weakness is, I am going to see that.”
At around 7:30am, a visit to the Arakul Government Primary School centre showed male and female voters standing in front of the centre to cast their ballots. The presence of women voters, alongside men, was particularly noticeable.
Meanwhile, at around 8:15am, Jamaat-e-Islami candidate Principal Shahinur Islam cast his vote at the Muslimnagar Government Primary School centre. Responding to the BNP candidate’s allegations, Shahinur Islam told Prothom Alo, “Is what the candidate is alleging even possible? This made me laugh. The general public will never accept such baseless allegations.”
He added, “There were some problems in the morning. Now things are normal. The administration is sincere about ensuring a fair election. We want every voter to exercise their right to vote in a peaceful environment. It must be ensured that each person can vote for whomever they wish.”
The Dhaka–3 constituency, comprising the Jinjira, Shubhadya, Aganagar, Konda and Tegharia unions of Keraniganj, has a total of 359,618 voters. Of them, 182,843 are men, 176,771 are women, and 4 are hijra voters. There are 126 polling centres in the constituency.
The candidates contesting in this seat are: BNP’s Gayeshwar Chandra Roy (sheaf of paddy), Jamaat-e-Islami’s Principal Shahinur Islam (scales), Gano Forum’s Rowshan Yazdani (rising sun), Ganosamhati Andolan’s Md. Bacchu Bhuiyan (matal), Islami Andolan’s Sultan Ahmed Khan (hand fan), Bangladesh Congress’s Mohammad Zafar (coconut), Jatiya Party’s Md. Faruk (plough), Bangladesh Samajtantrik Dal’s Mujibur Howlader (ladder), Ganadhikar Parishad’s Md. Sajjad (truck), and independent candidate Md. Monir Hossain (football).