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Puzzling Turnout

Low in the day, high at night

Ershad, GM Quader lose Lalmonirhat seats

Star Report
The turnout at Matuail Adarsha High School polling centre was only 16.5 percent as of midday yesterday. But in the last two hours, it rose to 42 percent, thanks to false
votes cast by polling agents and supporters of the Awami League candidate.
A team from The Daily Star was present at the centre in Dhaka-5 throughout the day. It saw a few AL activists frequently entering and exiting the centre's seven booths. They were casting false votes aided by the polling agents.
From 8:00am to 2:00pm, 711 votes were cast. The number finally stood at 1,807, showing that 1,096 votes were cast in last two hours.
The number of voters of the centre is 4,298, all of whom are male. In the first six hours, the average rate of votes cast at the seven booths was 118.5 per hour, while in the last two hours it was 548.
Asked about the unusual rise in the figures, Presiding Officer Nurul Islam said, "Pray to Allah so that we can go home safe when we are done."
Some activists of the ruling Awami League said on condition of anonymity that they tried to increase voter turnout on instruction of the party high-ups. "We have to show at least 50 percent of the votes cast,” said one of them.
AL candidate Habibur Rahman Mollah, however, claimed that people came to cast their ballots spontaneously. “There is no evidence of irregularities at the centre, ” he said.
Meanwhile, the presiding officer at Shahjahadpur Najar Mahmud Alim Madrasa centre in Dhaka-17 constituency foiled rigging attempts.
A man identifying himself as a local Awami League activist asked the officer at least twice to allow some voters to cast votes without scrutiny, as his party high-command had instructed him to do so.
Idris Ali, the presiding officer, declined to listen to him. "I told him that I could not do him any favour without permission from the returning officer."
In some centres in capital's Uttara, a group of Awami League activists allegedly rigged the vote in favour of AL candidate Shahara Khatun in a bid to show high voter turnout.
At Uttara Girls School and College in Dhaka-18, some men of Shahara threatened the presiding officers to allow them to cast false votes.
The AL activists also talked with the returning officer of Dhaka over the phone and urged him to direct the presiding officers to help them in the rigging, a presiding officer, who asked not to be named, told The Daily Star.
He also said the AL men warned the officers of consequences if they did not cooperate in vote-rigging to make the turnout 51 percent.
A polling officer said he became exhausted after putting black marks on the finger of an AL leader who voted more than 20 times.
To Syed Md Asad, Shahara's chief election coordinator at the school, another AL man was saying he and his wife had cast 10 votes each.
Two correspondents and a photographer of The Daily Star, who were constantly present at the school from 8:00am to 4:00pm, witnessed incidents of electoral fraud.
The rigging took place after 3:00pm when some AL men brought many boys below 18 years of age on the school premises and directed them to go inside polling booths and cast votes.
Many polling officers seemed helpless as the activists went inside the polling rooms carrying voting slips of other people. They collected ballots from the officers and voted for Shahara.
As soon as journalists entered the booths, they went to another booth to cover
it up. The centre saw less than three percent voter turnout from 8:00am to 11:00am.
From 11:00am to 3:00pm, the turnout went up to 7.28 percent at another centre there, while it rose to 12.45 percent in just one hour from 3:00pm.
The alleged vote rigging also prompted 31 candidates, including several leaders from two alliance partners of the ruling Awami League, boycotted yesterday's polls.
Among the candidates, four were from AL, nine from Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal (JSD-Inu), one from Workers Party, three from Jatiya Party (Ershad), AL's former ally in the grand alliance, two from JP (Manju) while the rest were independent candidates.
Workers Party nominated candidate in Natore-3 Mizanur Rahman was narrating how his opponent AL candidate rigged the votes at a press briefing at his election office at Shingra Bazar in Natore.
But he suddenly got a phone call and abandoned the press conference without speaking further. Party sources said party chief Rashed Khan Menon phoned him.
Another notable case is Lalmonirhat-1.
Atotal of 1,93,575 voters cast theirvotes in 131 polling centres of this seat, taking the turnout to 70 percent, according to unofficial results.
This is the first time Jatiya Party Chairman HM Ershad suffered a defeat here. He lost it to Awami League candidate Motahar Hossain.
Let's see how the turnout in Lalmonirhat-1 got the quantum leap.
There were 1,607 voters at Ketkibari Govt Primary School polling centre in the northern district. Only 120 votes were cast at the centre till 2:00pm, but the figure jumped to 1,580 by 4:00pm.
Rezaul Islam, 50, a voter in this polling centre alleged that about 10 to 12 Jubo League and BCL men rushed in the polling centre at around 3:10pm.
"They entered the booths and left the centre around 3:50pm. The BCL and Jubo League men cast forged ballots, resulting in such a high figure," he alleged.
Another voter of the same centre Shamsul Islam said he found his vote already cast as he entered the polling booth around 3:25pm.
"Like me, many voters returned home disappointed as their votes had already been cast by somebody else," he said.
A total of 1,701 out of 1,750 votes were cast in Ketkibari Madrasa centre in Hatibandha upazila. "AL men cast our votes," said Hamza Bapari, a voter of Ketkibari area.
Over a hundred voters at Hatibandha, Patgram and Lalmonirhatsadarupazilas told The Daily Star that the election was rigged by AL men. But neither the polling officials nor law enforcers took any action, they alleged.
However, Motahar Hossain and Abu Sayeed Dulal denied the votes rigging allegations.
Interestingly, in adjacent Lalmonirhat-2 constituency, only 27 percent votes were cast. Ershad's brother GM Quader was defeated by AL aspirant Abu Sayeed Dulal.
Surprisingly, JP presidium member Quader got only 895 votes while Dulal bagged 57,918 votes and his nearest rival JSD's Khorshed Alam got 1,432.
Both Sayeed and Motahar denied the allegations of anomalies.