Aspirants seven, party one

Seven mayoral aspirants, all affiliated with the Awami League-led alliance, are running election campaigns ahead of the polls to the two Dhaka city corporations.

Their campaigns, however, received lukewarm response from the city dwellers as the BNP-led combine appears unwilling to endorse any candidate in the election.

Many billboards in different parts of the capital are the only visible signs of the upcoming city polls likely to be held within two months.

The Election Commission is yet to announce the polls schedule.

Mayoral and councillor aspirants are using billboards for propagating their promises and ideas for a better city.

Billboard owners said both mayoral and councillor hopefuls have grabbed a number of billboards in the city since mid-February. The owners are making huge losses as the clients refused to pay them.

Two huge billboards in front of Shisu Park at Shahbagh are among the many grabbed in the last few days.

Only a couple of days back, both the billboards displayed advertisements of Grameen Phone and sanitary-ware company Stella.

On Monday evening, the advertisements were mostly covered by giant posters of mayoral aspirant Haji Mohammad Selim, joint general secretary of Dhaka city AL. 

Similarly, many more billboards were grabbed by other mayoral and councillor hopefuls in different parts of the capital, mostly from Bijoy Sarani to Gulistan.

"Nobody took our permission to use those ... It is causing us huge losses. We don't know where to go or whom to complain to," Shahidul Islam, treasurer of the Billboard Owners' Association, told The Daily Star yesterday.

The trend of grabbing billboards on a large scale was first seen after Bangladesh won a maritime boundary dispute with Myanmar in an international court in March 2012, he said.

Asked about the grabbing of billboards, Selim, a mayoral aspirant in Dhaka South City Corporation, said he was unaware of it.

He said his well-wishers might have put the posters on the billboards ahead of the city polls.

Selim, also an independent lawmaker from Dhaka-7, said all his posters and banners would be removed from the billboards within 24 hours of the announcement of election schedule.

Apart from him, AL leader Sayeed Khokon and Jatiya Party leader Haji Saifuddin Ahmed Milon are to contest the polls for the mayoral post in Dhaka South City Corporation.

In Dhaka North City Corporation, former FBCCI president Annisul Huq, AL lawmaker Kamal Ahmed Majumder, Jatiya Party leader Bahauddin Ahmed Babul and AL leader Ekhlas Uddin Mollah are to vie for the mayoral position.

It is still uncertain whether Nagorik Oikya Convener Mahmudur Rahman Manna will be able to contest the polls as a mayoral candidate in the northern part, as he is now under police custody. He faces two lawsuits -- one for sedition and the other for “trying to instigate revolt in the armed forces”.

As part of election campaign, followers of Kamal Majumder distributed food among bus passengers from Shyamoli to Kalyanpur yesterday. They also brought out a procession in Mohammadpur to drum up support for him.

Meanwhile, Selim distributed food among destitute people at Bir Shreshtha Motiur Rahman High School while Sayeed Khokon conducted election campaigns in Old Dhaka.

Another mayoral aspirant, Annisul Huq, attended the launching of a survey by “Amra Dhaka” that will identify problems of the residents in the city's northern part.  

The ruling AL on February 26 decided to back Annisul Huq and Sayeed Khokon as mayoral candidates.

On November 29, 2011, the government split the DCC into two -- Dhaka north with 56 and Dhaka south with 36 wards -- and appointed two government officials as administrators for six months. The last DCC election was held in 2002 and BNP leader Sadeque Hossain Khoka was elected mayor.

Sources in the AL told this correspondent that the party wants to see a participatory city election to divert people's attention from the ongoing political crisis.

But the campaigns by mayoral and councillor hopefuls have so far generated little enthusiasm among the city residents.

Mohammad Nayan, an elderly shopkeeper in Eskaton area, said he saw posters of the candidates but didn't see much of interest among people in the area about the upcoming city polls.

Sixty-five-year-old Mohammad Sohel Mia, owner of a tea stall on Nazimuddin Road, thinks the government is holding the city election only to divert people's attention. 

It is certain that someone from the AL-led combine will be the mayor in the city's southern part as all the candidates belong to the ruling alliance, he said.

"Only the boatman will be changed, but the boat will be there," said Sohel.

The AL men aspiring to become councillors are not lagging behind the mayoral hopefuls in lobbying for the party's blessing. In every ward, several councillor aspirants of                   the party have been running campaigns.

On February 23, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina gave directives to pick a single councillor candidate to be backed by the party in each ward. The party, however, is yet to take any step to that end.

Asked, Food Minister and AL Joint General Secretary Qamrul Islam  said they would select a single candidate from every ward at “the right time”.