Tahseen Bahar Suchana won the Cumilla City Corporation (CCC) by-polls on Saturday while Ekramul Haque Titu was reelected as the Mayor of Mymensingh City Corporation (MCC).
The elections to the two city corporations along with more than 200 local government units were held within two months of the 12th parliamentary polls.
Shuchona won the Cumilla City Corporation by-polls beating her nearest rival Monirul Hoque Sakku by a huge margin of votes.
With her victory, the CCC has got the mayor from the womenfolk for the first time since its inception in 2011.
Shuchona got 48,890 votes while former two-time mayor and expelled BNP leader Sakku got 26,897 votes.
Farhad Hossain, returning officer, announced the unofficial results of the elections at the Zilla School auditorium in the evening.
Another expelled BNP leader Nizam Uddin Kaiser got 13,155 votes while another mayoral candidate Noor-ur Rahman Mahmud Tanim bagged 5,173 votes. Locals said that the presence of voters was very thin.
Using the Electronic Voting Machine (EVM), the voting began at 8:00am and continued till 4:00pm without any break.
There are 118,282 male voters and 124,278 female voters under the city corporation.
Shuchona is the organising secretary of the Cumilla city unit of the Awami League and eldest daughter of local lawmaker AKM Baharuddin.
The by-polls were held at the death of Arfanul Haque, who passed away on December 13 last year.
The Election Commission on 22 January fixed March 9 as the by-polls date.
After the inception of the CCC in 2011, BNP leader Sakku won the CCC polls twice. Awami League leader Arfanul Haque became the mayor of CCC in 2022 elections by defeating Sakku.
The first election of this city corporation was held on 5 January 2012 and the second election was on 30 March 2017.
In 2012, Sakku won as mayor as an independent candidate defeating Awami League leader Afzal Khan by 35,000 votes.
In 2017, he again won against Afzal Khan’s daughter Anjum Sultana Sima by a margin of 11,000 votes.
In the third-time election on 15 June 15, Rifat defeated Sakku in a closely contested battle, securing the victory by a margin of 343 votes.
In her reaction, Shuchona told reporters that she would work in a planned manner.
“Though the city corporation has been established 13 years ago, we have been deprived of getting civic facilities. There are many problems….so, work must be carried out by giving a priority on some issues,” she said, adding that long, short and medium term plans would be taken to carry out the work.
In Mymensingh City Corporation polls, Titu was leading with a huge margin of votes.
Unofficial result shows that out of 128 centres, Titu got 110,561 votes while his nearest rival Sadekul Khan Milky got 29,252 votes in 109 centres.