DHAKA 4 CONSTITUENCY
Votes of working class to be decisive factor
Staff Correspondent
Candidates vying for Dhaka 4 constituency with a high concentration of working class people, have geared up their campaigns with lofty promises as parliamentary elections are nearing.
Workers, mostly garment workers, comprise the majority of the 20,1000 registered voters in the constituency in which about 2,700 different industries, mostly garment units, are located. The constituency includes city corporation wards 83, 87, 88, and Shyampur union. Workers’ votes will be the decisive factor in the constituency, locals said.
Abdul Hai, candidate of the BNP-led alliance, who had been elected a lawmaker for Munshiganj 4 five times before, is likely to fight it out with the Awami League-led alliance’s nominee, former woman ward commissioner Sanjida Khanam.
Talking to New Age, Abdul Hai said that if elected, he would work for development of Dhaka-Narayanganj-Demra embankment which had constantly been causing water logging in the area, and set up proper drainage system to ease the sufferings of the residents.
Hai also said if his party was elected to power, he would persuade it to solve the problems of power and gas supply shortages in the industrial areas of Dhaka 4.
He said, ‘We will not allow any crimes in the area and form a local committee to stop terrorism and extortion in the area.’
AL candiadate’s Sanjida Khanam, also a leader of the party’s central committee, is also visiting door to door seeking vote for ‘boat’. She has pledged to set up a college in the area, if her party is voted to power.
‘We intend to make a playground as there is no field for the physical development of the young people in the area’, she added.
Taking to New Age, Sanjida Khanam accused her rival from the BNP of violating election code of conduct by spending money beyond the ceiling set by the Election Commission to gather people in his campaign rallies.
‘During the previous BNP-Jamaat government, crimes became a daily routine in the area and gangsters, patronised by the then ruling alliance, virtually held the residents hostages’, she said.
The two rivals for the constituency accused each other of violating election code of conduct including tearing off each other’s posters.
All the candidates are using loudhailers in their campaigns and have set up a few election camps.
Tea vendor Siddiqur Rhaman Miah of Postogola area said the people of the constituency had known AL leader Sanjida Khanam for long as a woman ward commissioner but Abdul Hai was not a familiar face in the constituency.
‘I think, voters will evaluate the performance of Salahuddin Ahmed, the MP elected on BNP ticket for the area last time, before choosing their representative this time’, he added.
Besides Hai and Khanam, independent candidate Latifur Rahman with symbol ‘moon’, Jatiyatabadi Samajtantrik Dal nominee Mohammad Akhter Hossain Bhuiyan with ‘star’, Bangladesh Khelafat Majlish candidate MA Mallik with ‘banyan tree’, Oikyabaddha Nagarik Andolan nominee Amin Khan with ‘key’, Bangladesh Tarikat Federation candidate Motiur Rahman with ‘garland’, M Safiqur Rahman of Bangladesh Kalyan Party with ‘wristwatch’ symbol, M Sarful Ali of Gana Forum with ‘sun’ and Rashid Ahmed Ferdous of Islamic Andolan with ‘hand-fan’ symbol are also in the race for Dhaka 4.
‘The candidates usually make many pledges before the votes but forget all after the election is over,’ said Habib, a garment worker of Shaympur area.
‘We want the water logging problem of the DND embankment area to be solved as early as possible’, he added.
Residents of the constituency also complained that the roads of the area had not been repaired for long.
Garment factory owner Azam Ali told New Age, ‘Our production is hampered due to power failure and lack of adequate gas supply … The problems should be solved for the interest of the country’s economy.
Courtesy: newagebd.com
