Ariful takes lead in Sylhet city polls

Ariful Haque Chowdhury, BNP mayoral candidate in the Sylhet City Corporation (SCC) elections, is slightly ahead of his Awami League contestant Badar Uddin Ahmed Kamran in a close contest, according to the polls results received so far.

Ariful has taken a lead by 4,626 votes based on results of 132 polling centres out of 134, according to the returning official.

Ariful bagged 90,496 votes while Kamran got 85,870 votes, the sources said.

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However, the election commission did not declare Ariful victorious as the results of the rest two centres (4,787 votes) were suspended.

Earlier, Ariful announced this afternoon that he would reject the results of the polls.

Timeline: Sylhet City polls 

He came up with the announcement at a press conference at his main office in Kazi Tula area of Sylhet city soon after the voting ended at 4:00pm.

In the conference, Ariful said he would reject the result of the election, whatever it may be, and also brought allegation of vote rigging by mentioning that 2-3 polling centres were forcefully seized.

He also expressed his dissatisfaction regarding the election as no steps were taken against this issue even after handing over a written complaint to the concerned authorities.

Ariful also demanded resignation of the election commissioner over the irregularities.