In 1996 polls, BNP's Saifur Rahman lost to Awami League stalwart Humayun Rashid Chowdhury with a narrow margin. In 2001, Saifur defeated AL's AMA Muhith by a margin of 40,000 votes.

Saifur and Muhith may lock horns in the coming election, party sources said.

Both are in the field now with their men and material, attending various programmes eyeing the 2007 election.

All political parties give top priority to this constituency because many leaders believe that the party which wins the seat forms the government. This happened since the independence.

BNP heavyweight Saifur, who has been enjoying power for long, kept a number of election pledges. But he has been facing serious rivalry from party men in the area for the last one and a half years. The matter created an issue in ruling BNP when Saifur got involved in mudslinging with a young lawmaker from the same district--M Ilyas Ali.

Although Ilyas lost the post of Sylhet district BNP convener and the party committee has been dissolved, the rivalry is still there. An annoyed Saifur even wanted to leave politics. He is back to politics again. In last few months, Saifur attended programmes in Sylhet almost every week.

A section of city dwellers said some major development activities in the divisional headquarters as well as in some other areas will give Saifur an extra benefit in the coming election. But he will face some trouble from a section of party men, party insiders feel.

Former bureaucrat AMA Muhit, who joined Awami League from Ershad's Jatiya Party, contested the 2001 election and lost to Saifur with about 40,000 votes. He was also finance minister during jatiya Party rule.

Though he has his ancestral home in the city, Muhith was not well known to the commonman. Talking to this correspondent, some AL men claimed that Muhith lost in 2001 mainly due to intra-party feud in Sylhet Awami League.

He suffered a lot due to feud between Abdus Samad Azad and Suranjit Sen Gupta, who were backing two rival factions. Muhit belonged to Suranjit's camp, they said.

As AL advisory committee member, Muhit is attending party programmes regularly now.

There is a new aspirant for AL ticket in the next election. A strong faction in AL wants to fight the coming election by fielding Sylhet City Corporation Mayor Badar Uddin Ahmed Kamran, who is also chief of Sylhet unit of AL. They believe Muhith would not be the appropriate candidate against a giant like Saifur.

Kamran himself also expressed desire for party ticket.

Kamran began his political career as a ward commissioner of Sylhet pourashava in 1970s. He became chairman of Sylhet Pourashava. As the pourashava was upgraded to a city corporation, he became the first elected mayor in 2003. This gave him a boot to work on a wider scale.

"I an confident of winning the polls race, if nominated", Kamran told this correspondent. However, a faction in the party is still opposing him, sources said.