Voters in queues waiting for casting their ballots in a poll center of Kishoreganj district Wednesday.
Ruling Awami League nominated mayoral candidate Rejwan Ahmed Toufiq is leading in unofficial counting of votes in the Kishoreganj-4 by-polls.
As per results received at 7:00pm when this report was filed, Toufiq bagged 1,00,053 votes while the other contestant, Syed Mohitul Islam Asim, an independent candidate, 58,785 votes, our Kishoreganj correspondent reported quoting unofficial sources.
Zahid Hossain, the returning officer of the by-polls, has yet to announce the results.
Counting started after the daylong voting ended at 4:00pm.
Earlier in the morning, Islam blamed AL-backed candidate Toufiq for vote rigging in Astagram upazila couple of hours into beginning of vote casting.
Main opposition BNP has boycotted the polls.
According to Islam, supporters of Toufiq started stamping ballot papers after driving out his agents from different polling centres in Astagram upazila.
He also blamed the AL favourite for thin presence of people saying that Toufiq has intentionally created a panicky situation so that people refrain themselves from voting.
People of Itna, Mithamoin and Astagram upazilas started casting their ballots around 8:00am.
AL candidate Toufiq cast his vote at Government Primary School in Mithamoin upazila.
The parliamentary seat fell vacant after the lawmaker from the constituency, Abdul Hamid, then Speaker of parliament, was elected president on April 22.
The ruling AL nominated candidate Toufiq, eldest son of President Abdul Hamid, is contesting the election.
His opponent, “rebel” party candidate Islam, contested the election as an independent candidate.
A total of 2,79,719 voters are on the voter list. Total 104 out of the total 118 polling centres in the constituency were declared vulnerable, according to an election official.
Around 6,000 law enforcers, including members of police, Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB), Rab, and Ansar, were deployed in the three upazilas.
Source: Bd news24
