CEC asks election official to probe Hero Alam’s allegation

Chief election commissioner (CEC) Kazi Habibul Awal has called a local election official asking him to investigate the allegation of election engineering raised by Bogura-4 constituency’s independent candidate Ashraful Alam alias Hero Alam, who was defeated by a slim margin in Bogura-4 by polls held yesterday.

The CEC today called assistant returning officer and Bogura district’s senior election official Mahmud Hasan on Thursday and ordered an investigation into the allegation of Hero Alam.

Hero Alam, who was ahead during majority of vote counting, alleged that results of 10 polling centers were changed to ensure this defeat.

Mahmud Hasan said the CEC called him as the allegation Hero Alam made to the media came into his notice. Election officials later re-verified the results of every polling center of Nandigram upazila.

He said the tally of votes in the EVM machines and the declared results matched 100 per cent. Hero Alam can re-evaluate the result if he wants.

The independent candidate Hero Alam lost by only 834 votes to grand alliance candidate AKM Rezaul Karim Tansen in the by-polls.   

The by-election returning officer and Bogura deputy commissioner (DC) Md Saiful Islam announced the result on Wednesday night. As per the result, 78, 524 votes were cast in 112 centres which accounted for 23.92 per cent turnout.  

AKM Rezaul Karim won the election securing 20,405 votes while Hero Alam bagged 19,571 votes.  

Later at around 10:30 Hero Alam raised the allegation of election engineering at a press conference at his house in Bogura’s Erulia. He said the vote was not rigged but the results were stolen. Alam also said he would go to the High Court to get justice.

He said during the results of the first 39 polling centers out of 49 in Nandigram were declared separately at the upazila’s election control room. Then announcement of results was paused for a while.  After a while, Rezaul Karim Tansen was declared winner abruptly without announcing the results of 10 centers separately.

Asked about Hero Alam’s allegation, Mahmud Hasan said, “Why he did not raise any question about the results of Kahalu upazila? Because, he won in that upazila. He raised question about Nandigram as he got fewer votes there.”