AL's Rifat wins Cumilla city polls by a slight margin

Arfanul Haque Rifat, the Awami League-backed candidate, unofficially the the Comilla city mayoral race.

He bagged 343 more votes than his rival aspirant Monirul Haque Sakku, who joined the polls fray independently.

The polls result was announced unofficially on Wednesday night after voting ended almost peacefully at 4pm. The balloting started at 8am and continued for the next eight years without any break.

Earlier in the day, Rifat exercised his franchise at the Comilla Victoria Collegiate School centre, while Sakku, whom the BNP has expelled for life for contesting the polls defying the party’s stance, voted at the Hossamia Lutfnnessa Girls School centre – both at around 9am.

As per the results of all 105 polling centres, Rifat got 50,310 votes while Sakku collected 49,967  ballots. 

Another independent candidate Nizam Uddin Kaiser has secured around 28,000 votes.

Cumilla City Corporation Election Returning Officer Shahedunnabi Chowdhury announced the results. 

The vote counting was suspended for a brief period after a scuffle between the supporters of Rifat and Sakku. 

The two factions went face to face at the Cumilla Shilpakala Academy premises from where the results are being announced Wednesday (15 June) after balloting ended. Later police charged batons to disperse them. 

Supporters of Monirul Haque Sakku claimed that the AL candidate's supporters attacked them. 

According to the Returning Officer’s Office, there were a total of 229,920 voters in the elections. 

Of them, 117,092 were female, 112,826 were male and two others were transgender voters.

Voting took place in 640 centres of 105 polling stations overall.

Local administration sentenced ten people to different terms of imprisonment for their alleged bid to create chaos during the polls.