Narayanganj, Oct 31 (bdnews24.com) — Selina Hayat Ivy has become the first mayor of Narayanganj.
She beat her nearest rival Awami League-backed candidate Shamim Osman by a margin of 101,343 votes, returning officer Biswas Lutfar Rahman announced at 12.50am Monday.
Awami League's renegade candidate Ivy polled 180,048 votes, 66 percent of the total votes cast at 163 centres in the city corporation area.
Ivy's main rival, ruling Awami League-backed Shamim Osman, bagged 78,705 or 29 percent of the total votes, while the other heavyweight candidate, BNP-backed Taimur Alam Khandaker, who boycotted the election hours before the polling, got 4,304.
The Narayanganj City Corporation has a total vote of just over 400,000.
bdnews24.com updated unofficial results announced only from the control room of the Election Commission by the returning officer.
Ivy claimed victory when only results of 20 centres had come in, saying it was a people's victory.
Her opponent Shamim has remained indoors since evening and was unavailable for his comments.
The other mayor candidates were Islami Andolan leader Nannu Munshi with 'bullock cart' symbol and independent candidates Sharif Mohammad with 'duck' and Atikul Islam Jibon with 'lock' symbol.
Shamim's electoral symbol was 'wall clock', while Ivy competed with 'pen and inkpot'.
BNP-backed mayor aspirant Taimur with 'pineapple' symbol announced his withdrawal from the polls just seven hours before the ballot was underway following party orders.
Election commissioner Sohul Hossain dismissed the boycott call, saying there was no chance of withdrawing candidacy 'at this stage', and that the commission would treat Taimur as a candidate.
Returning officer Biswas Lutfar Rahman announced the results from the EC control room at the city's Shahid Zia Hall.
The vote count result was also being published at Selina Hayat Ivy's fan page on the social networking site Facebook.
Representatives of the mayoral aspirants were at the control room while mayor candidate Atikur Rahman Nannu Munshi was there in person. Naranyanganj Bus Owners' Association president Muktar Hossain was there on behalf of Shamim Osman while district Awami League unit president Anwar Hossain was Ivy's representative there.
The balloting of the newly-formed city corporation ended peacefully.
A total of 250 candidates were fighting for the posts of general councillors and 56 for reserved wards for women.
One presiding officer was assigned for every centre. A total of 1,217 assistant presiding officers and 1,434 polling officers were appointed.
EC secretariat joint secretary Biswas Lutfar had nine others to assist him.
The EC has introduced the Electronic Voting Machines for the second time in this election in nine wards — 7, 8, 9, 16, 17, 18, 22, 23 and 24. The total number of voters in these wards is 148,629.
Over a hundred-thousand voters cast their votes using EVMs at 58 polling centres in nine wards.
The EC monitored 20 polling centres from its secretariat in Dhaka on CCTVs. There was also a monitoring panel at Shahid Zia Hall in the city. The CCTV feeds were recorded to identify miscreants, if any.
Lutfar said more than 8,000 lawmen were assigned to maintain law and order at Narayanganj on the voting day. Of them, 4,000 were members of police and Armed Police Battalion, 2,500 of Ansar and VDP, 100 of the Coast Guard and 1,000 were members of Rapid Action Battalion.
EC approved 18 local observing institutions and eight international agencies to observe the ballot.
More than 800 journalists and media workers took out press credentials from the EC. Among them more than 300 were television technicians.
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