Awami League leader Shuchona wins Cumilla City Corporation mayoral by-election

She pledges to “reciprocate people’s love by working diligently and wholeheartedly, aiming to fulfil her duties with utmost dedication”

Tahseen Bahar Shuchona, the daughter of Awami League MP AKM Bahauddin Bahar, has won the Cumilla City Corporation mayoral by-election marred by allegations of voter intimidation.

Cumilla Metropolitan Awami League’s Organising Secretary Shuchona, contesting with the bus symbol, bagged 48,890 votes to defeat expelled BNP leader and two-time former mayor Monirul Haque Sakku by a huge margin of 21,993.

Returning Officer Md Farhad Hossain announced the results at Cumilla Zilla School after daylong balloting through electronic voting machines on Saturday.

Shuchona, the first woman to win the Cumilla mayor’s poll, arrived at the school in the evening and expressed gratitude “for the overwhelming support she received from the people”.

She pledged to “reciprocate this love by working diligently and wholeheartedly, aiming to fulfil her duties with utmost dedication”.

The total number of voters in Cumilla is 242,458.

Expelled Swechchhasebak Dal leader Nizam Uddin Kaiser received 13,155 votes with the horse symbol, and Nur Ur Rahman Mahmud Tanim, an advisor of Cumilla Metropolitan Awami League and former VP of Cumilla Victoria Government College, obtained 5,173 votes.

Tensions flared early in the day as three mayoral hopefuls accused rival candidate Shuchona’s supporters of driving out their polling agents from voting centres.

The situation came to a head outside the Munshi M Ali High School centre, where two individuals were injured by gunfire amid clashes between supporters of opposing candidates.

Kaisar, a former BNP leader who contesting the mayoral election with the horse symbol, identified the injured as his supporters, Zahirul Islam and Md Tuhin.

Shuchona refuted allegations that her supporters attacked their rivals. "To my knowledge, our Chhatra League workers from Ward No. 19 have been shot. I am unsure why the complaint is directed at me," she said.

Cumilla Metropolitan Awami League General Secretary Arfanul Haque Rifat was elected mayor in 2022 by defeating Sakku by only 343 votes.

The post of mayor was declared vacant after Rifat died in hospital care in Singapore in December 2023.