AL's Arafat wins amid low turnout

Awami League candidate Mohammad A Arafat has won the Dhaka-17 by-election with 28,816 votes, according to an unofficial result.
His closest contestant and independent candidate Ashraful Alam alias Hero Alam got 5,609 votes in Monday's election held amid a poor voter turnout.
The polling began at 8.00 am and continued until 4:00 pm without break, which the Election Commission (EC) cited as peaceful.
However, in a bizarre incident, Hero Alam was beaten allegedly by Awami League activists in the afternoon.
Another independent candidate, Md Tariqul Islam, boycotted the vote.
Visiting polling centres in Gulshan, Banani and Mohakhali, the FE found officials and agents at most booths idling away time with so poor turnout of voters.
Even no queues were seen before any centres, although polling premises were crammed with campaigners in favour of the ruling-party candidate.
A total of eight candidates vied for the membership of parliament, but agents of only Arafat (symbol boat), Jatiya Party's Sikdar Anisur Rahman (plough) and Hero Alam (monochord) were found.
Other candidates include Kazi Md Rashidul Hasan from Zaker Party, Sheikh Habibur Rahman from Trinamool BNP, Rezaul Islam Swapan from Bangladesh Congress and Akbar Hossain from Bangladesh Sangskritik Mukti Jote.
Banani Bidyaniketan School and College accommodated seven polling centres that hardly received any voters around 12:00 pm.
After casting the vote at the same venue, one voter Rasel Mondal told the FE that he found no trouble in casting his vote.
"It's a quite bizarre situation here you see. Neither queue nor waiting at any point to drop the ballot paper," he said.
The atmosphere outside the school did not appear to be a usual polling centre since there was no active participation of voters, according to Mr Mondal.
A polling officer of a booth there told the FE that only seven out of 539 votes cast as of 11:30 pm.
Most of the booth representatives said 1.0-2.0 per cent votes were cast as of Monday noon.
"People showed no enthusiasm about this polling," the officer said, adding that they had nothing to do with the extent of voter turnout.
Several voters said people were reluctant to cast their vote since the new MP of this constituency would get some months only to represent them.
Besides, the voting mechanism in the country is getting less popular, according to them.
More campaigners of the ruling party than voters were seen around the centres.
However, Banani Model School and T&T Adarsha Girls' High School centres were found comparatively busier as many working-class voters, including Korali slum dwellers, cast their ballots in those centres.
Polling officers and voters said Gulshan and Banani residents usually show reluctance to the voting process. Considering it as holiday, many did not bother to spend time for voting.
Miking was done in Mohakhali areas to attract voters.
Meanwhile, Hero Alam came under attack near Banani Bidyaniketan around 3:15 pm.
His aides told the media that their candidate got treatment at a private hospital at Rampura and he was later taken home from there.
The video footage of beating Hero Alam revealed that the attackers were carrying badges of 'boat' symbol.
Earlier in the day, Hero Alam said he was afraid that he could be assaulted by ruling-party activists.
Around 10.30 am, he alleged that his agents were forced to leave polling booths, physically assaulted and their cellphones were snatched.
Hero Alam claimed his female polling agents were also assaulted.
Meanwhile talking to the media at Banani Bidyaniketan, returning officer Md Munir Hossain Khan said police took away Hero Alam from the centre with safety.
He was briefing media after the polling was completed.
The offices, education institutions and businesses entities in the polling areas were suspended on the day as the government declared general holiday there to facilitate the voting process. Consequently, the roads were mostly vacant.
The number of voters was 325,205 under 124 polling stations under the constituency that comprises Gulshan, Banani, Bhasantek and Dhaka cantonment areas.
The constituency became vacant in mid-May following the death of lawmaker Akbar Hossain Pathan.
At a media briefing at the EC, Commissioner Mohammad Alamgir said the actual figures of polling were yet to be available, saying the turnout was meagre.
He assumed that the turnout rate could fluctuate between 12 and 13 per cent.

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