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Last minute drama in Barisal

Staff Correspondent, Barisal
Although he finally won Barisal mayoral poll, Shawkat Hossain Hiron earlier rejected the preliminary unofficial count, accusing the government of' poll engineering to elect a person of its own choice'.
The mayoral race in Barisal City Corporation was supposed to be confined between Hiron and Ahsan Habib Kamal who had been expelled from BNP But Sharfuddin Ahmed Santu suddenly emerged as the closest contestant of Hiron out of almost nowhere, stupefying the candidates and the voters alike.
Santu was initially leading in the ballot but was later overtaken by Hiron. There was a neck to neck fight between the two.
Hiron, who was leading the poll by 300 votes till 3:00am, alleged that a 'certain intelligence agency1 along with Rapid Action Battalion (Rab) tried to snatch away his fair victory through rigging the poll
District AL Office Secretary Talukder Md Yunus filed a complaint with the returning officer (RO) last night, alleging that the intelligence agency and Rab turned voters away from 26 to 30 centres known as strongholds ofHiron.
'They even harassed the voters when they protested against the law enforcers' action.' said Yunus, adding that the results of seven other centres also known as strongholds of Hiron. did not come till 2:30am due to the interference by the law enforcers.
"The government did wrong andtheywillhavetopayfor it." an unhappy Hiron, who is being backed by Awami League in the election, said while briefing the media at the local Election Commission office around 1:45am.
"The government wanted to defeat me by a small margin in a few polling centres."
There are widespread allegations that Snatu doled out a large sum of money to buy votes, although in his affidavit Santu said he had no such money.
Many in Barisal city also alleged that the government agencies worked in favour of Santu and helped cast votes for him in some centres. They alleged that after votes were counted in some polling stations and the boxes were sealed and sent to the returning officer's office some people were seen breaking the seals and recoun ting the votes.
Asked about the incident Returning Officer Monirul Islam said he had no knowledge of the incident
Around 3:30am Hiron arrived at i the returning officer's office and demanded to know why the result from a centre only a ten-minute walk I away from the office still did not r come there. The returning officer then called the presiding officer but i nobody picked up the phone. At the time of filing this report the situation was tense at the returning officer's office in Barisal city.
Hiron. who was cruising towards a victory, rejected an early unofficial r count after his lead suddenly started t to erode tn many centres
1 As the chance of Hiron emerging 0 victorious appeared to have slimmed considerably in the quick turn ol e events, he quipped. "My victory is being hijacked."