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Wrong candidate, Jamaat yoke sank Nasir ship Observe BNP leaders

STAFF CORRESPONDENT
The ruling Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) has put its Chittagong City Corporation (CCC) election debacle down to wrong choice of candidate, excessive dependency on the Jamaat-e-Islami as well as intra-party squabbles. Senior BNP leaders identified a number of reasons behind the massive defeat and said party high command's first mistake was to nominate a person like Mir Mohammad Nasir Uddin who has previous record of defeat and is not popular with his own party men because of his politically incorrect behaviour.
Also his relation with the local BNP leaders, ministers and MPs was not warm at all and he was not very popular with the locals compared to his rival ABM Mohiuddin Chowdhury.
"We were defeated owing to wrong selection of candidate…we have mass support in Chittagong and the voters have not shifted to the Awami League either. But Mir Nasir obviously was not a competent candidate against the Awami League-backed nominee ABM Mohiuddin Chowdhury," said a top ranking BNP leader while talking to The Daily Star.
The BNP leaders also observed that although Mir Nasir was nominated as a four-party alliance candidate, he was excessively dependent only on the Jamaat.
They said Mir Nasir did not hold any meeting with the other parties of the alliance or with the local influential BNP leaders and ministers like Abdullah Al Noman, M Morshed Khan, Amir Khasru Mahmood Chowdhury and Jafrul Islam Chowdhury.
Ministers, central leaders and MPs of other areas, who had been staying in Chittagong for the last few days, said supporters of Mir Nasir did not allow the activists of Abdullah Al Noman to work in the election properly and forced them to stay away from the whole process because of the lack of warmth between the two leaders.
Nor did Mir Nasir discuss the poll strategy with the party's senior colleagues and seek their cooperation as he considered himself a member of Prime Minister Khaleda Zia's family and thus did not care anybody, they said.
Requesting anonymity a minister from Chittagong said there is a common feeling that Jamaat is very strong in Chittagong, which is not at all correct; majority people of the Port City is rather highly pro-liberation war. That is why perhaps people of Chittagong and majority of party men did not accept Mir Nasir's dependency on the Jamaat-e-Islami, the minister added.
A number of central leaders of the BNP, who were assigned to work in Chittagong, said Mir Nasir even failed to earn support of the party nominated ward commissioners, who clearly sought for their own vote and refrained from campaigning for Nasir. An important minister was busy with the campaign of the five ward commissioners of his constituency, they said.
The local BNP leaders pointed to another aspect of the election campaign: excessive presence of the BNP leaders and workers from Dhaka created serious disturbance for the city dwellers. Some even alleged that Tarique Rahman's last night campaign till 4:30am created an adverse reaction among the people.
The BNP leaders observed that ABM Mohiuddin Chowdhury made specific commitment to the city dwellers, but Mir Nasir had no such specific points and pledges to make.
A BNP policymaker, on condition of anonymity, said there are many reasons behind the defeat, but it is clear that there is a downward slide in the party popularity in the Port City.
He said the BNP had made a number of commitments for Chittagong during the 2001 national elections, like construction of the Karnaphuli Bridge, but did not fulfil a single commitment so far. In fact, there has been no such major development work in Chittagong in last three and a half years, he added.
Meanwhile, most BNP leaders are of the opinion that Tarique Rahman becomes the worst loser in this election as it was his first election campaign in favour of a party nominee and to which he attached much importance.
They said that the defeat of Mir Nasir is not at all a factor for the BNP politics, but it is a major factor for Tarique Rahman as he has already emerged as the BNP's future leader and has been looking after entire party affairs. The CCC polls defeat has greatly damaged his future political career, they added.