It was a regular day at a polling station in Charghat upazila of Rajshahi district that took a twisted turn when a union parishad member candidate was shown to receive zero votes after the day's ballot papers were counted by officials.
Shocked by such an incident, the outraged candidate exclaimed: Where did my vote go?
The incident took place at Belgharia Government Primary School in Charghat upazila of Rajshahi on Sunday (December 26) night.
Abu Taleb, UP member candidate with the rooster symbol was astonished that not only all his votes were missing from the ballot box, his vote too was missing as the authorities declared he received zero votes.
The sudden development at the polling station put the candidate in a topsy-turvy as he could not believe that his own vote went missing.
A flurry of rage also took over his supporters as they demanded the votes to be recounted. Abu Taleb's rooster symbol's supporters demonstrated in front of the polling station.
Police had to intervene to bring the situation under control, but failing to do so, they agreed to their demand for second round of counting the ballot papers.
At the end of the second round of counting, the candidate received 72 votes.
However, Abu Taleb and his supporters did not accept this result. They complained of vote rigging and chanted slogans and staged protests demanding punishment for those involved.
According to Asaduzzaman, Upazila Returning Officer "Some ballot papers fell under the table during the counting. That is why this mistake was made during the first round of vote-counting. After recovering the papers at the bottom of the table, the results were announced after second round of counting.
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