Awami League yet to pick mayor candidate for Dhaka South City Corporation

Sayeed Khokon’s claim of having the support of the Awami League is in question as senior leaders are saying the party has not taken a call on the mayoral runner for Dhaka South City Corporation just yet.

Khokon, son of former Dhaka mayor Mohammad Hanif, earlier said Awami League President Sheikh Hasina decided to back him.

But the party’s Dhaka City unit leaders Mofazzal Hossain Chowdhury Maya and Qamrul Islam, who are also members of Hasina’s cabinet, said on Tuesday that the party was yet to make a decision on the matter.

They were speaking to reporters at a meeting at Bangabandhu Avenue headquarters to draw up programmes for Independence Day.

The unit’s Joint General Secretary Haji Mohammad Salim, who was in the meeting, too, expressed his eagerness to run for mayor.

  Both Khokon and Salim collected nomination papers earlier in the day.

Vice president of the unit Foyez Uddin Mia presided over the meeting. Vice President Mukul Chowdhury and Organising Secretary Shah-e-Alam Murad were also present.

Khokon, Organising Secretary of the unit, entered the office with the unit’s Acting President MA Aziz after the meeting.

Prime Minister Hasina called Khokon to her office on Feb 26 and he told reporters after the meeting that she decided to support him.

Salim has also been campaigning to stake his claim saying ‘people want him to do so’.

He had defeated the Awami League candidate in 2014 parliamentary election as an independent candidate.

After collecting nomination papers on Tuesday, Salim said he believed that the party would finally support him.

At the meeting to fix the Independence Day programmes, Maya said Hasina would finally decide who to support when the time to submit nomination papers ends on Mar 29.

“Dhaka Metropolitan Awami League will wholeheartedly work for the candidate chosen by the leader,” he said.

He said that if someone violated the decision, they will be sacked from the party.

Qamrul echoed Maya saying the party had not decided on the candidate.

The ruling party had faced similar problem in the Narayanganj City Corporation polls.

Hasina backed AKM Shamim Osman but another Awami League leader Selina Hayat Ivy defeated him.

General Secretary Syed Ashraful Islam said after the polls that the party had not officially backed anyone in the elections.

Food Minister Qamrul on Tuesday said there was no chance for a party to nominate someone in the local polls. “But we can support anyone,” he added.

“We’ll work together for the victory of the candidate chosen by the prime minister,” he said.

The two ministers were hopeful that the BNP, which boycotted the last general election and is enforcing an indefinite blockade demanding snap polls, will join the city polls.

Maya said they were ready to face the BNP’s challenge if it supported any ‘good man other than terrorist’.

Qamrul, however, said BNP’s ‘bizarre’ conditions to join the polls would not be met.