BANGLADESH

The acting general secretary of ruling Awami League has declined to comment on three of his party colleagues voicing support for Narayanganj mayor candidate Shamim Osman.

When journalists asked him on Friday about the party's three organising secretaries' visiting the Narayanganj district party office and making dubious announcements supporting Shamim, Mahbub-ul Alam Hanif said, "Someone might have gone there. But I don't know if they had made any announcements."

"As the Awami League (acting) spokesperson, it would be inappropriate for me to talk about that," he said at the party headquarters.

Former Narayanganj MP Shamim and former Narayanganj municipality mayor Selina Hayat Ivy of Awami League are among the six mayoral candidates for the first Narayanganj City Corporation (NCC) elections.

Awami League leadership, including the head, prime minister Sheikh Hasina, held several meetings with both to convince one of them to withdraw nomination, but failed.

Neither of them withdrew candidature until Wednesday, the deadline for withdrawal of nomination.

Osman is running with wall-clock symbol while Selina has inkpot-pen.

"There is no scope of party interventions in a local government election. Even then, we had advised the two candidates to reach an agreement. They failed to do that," Hanif said.

He said NCC election is the first one after the 15th Amendment abolished the caretaker government system.

"The [election] commission is conducting the polls independently. We'll not do anything that violates the code," he said.