10,961 votes invalid in 4 Nilphamari seats

2 January 2009, 18:00 PM

Our Correspondent, Nilphamari

A total of 10,961 cast votes were invalid in four constituencies of the district in the December 29 parliament election. The invalid votes comprise 1.20 percent of the cast votes in the four seats. The number of invalid votes, considered constituency-wise, exceeds the votes got individually by nine out of the 20 candidates in the district. The votes were cancelled as the concerned ballot papers had seals at the wrong place or no seals at all, sources said. In Nilphamari-1 (Domar-Dimla), the number of invalid votes is 2,781. In the constituency, Abdur Rouf of Gono Forum bagged 1088 votes and Ashrafuzzaman Laku of BASAD, bagged only 791 votes. Abdul Jalil of Islami Andolon, Rowsan Ali of Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal and Syed Elias Ahmed of Krishak Sramik Janata League got 760, 497 and 360 votes respectively. In Nilphamari-2 (Sadar), the number of invalid votes is 2,463. Islami Andolon candidate Md Ali Pramanik got 2,198 votes. In Nilphamari-3 (Jaldhaka and part of Kishoreganj), the number of invalid votes is 2,449. Islami Andolon candidate Abdul Monayem bagged only 1,549 votes. In Nilphamari-4 (Saidpur and rest of Kishoreganj), the number of invalid votes is 2,268. Monsura Rahman of Bangladesh National Awami Party (NAP) and Md Sadruddin of Islami Andolon got only 332 and 2,070 votes. “There should be arrangement for training voters to cast vote correctly in order to minimise the number of invalid votes,” said Gabul Saqlain, the district convenor of SUJAN (Shuhashaner Janno Nagarik citizens for good governance). Despite some the Election Commission's newly introduced rules, a few persons, well aware of their lack of popularity among the voters, contested in the national election only to gain some familiarity in the area, said several voters.