Joy hopes AL candidates’ success in city corporation polls

680

DHAKA, July 29, 2018 (BSS) – Prime Minister’s Information and Communication
Technology (ICT) Affairs Adviser Sajeeb Ahmed Wazed Joy today expected Awami
League candidates’ success in three city polls saying different independent
survey reports projected their possible victory.

“I can quite confidently say that in Barisal and Rajshahi, Awami League
will win by a landslide. In Sylhet, we are slightly ahead, but it is too
close to call,” he said on his Facebook post referring to three separate
survey reports.

Joy said his team commissioned three public opinion surveys for the three
elections while the studies were carried out throughout July by independent
Research Development Center (RDC).

He said the according to the survey results, around 44 percent voters of
Barisal City Corporation favoured AL’s mayoral candidate Serniabat Sadik
Abdullah while 13.1 percent voters were in favour of BNP candidate Mujibur
Rahman Sarowar and 0.8 percent in favour of other candidates.

Joy said about 15.9 percent voters, however, refused to respond in the
opinion polls in Barisal and 23.5 percent said they were yet to decide.

“The sample size of this survey (in Barisal) was 1,241 registered voters,”
Joy said.

In Rajshahi City Corporation, about 58 percent voters gave opinions in
favour of AL candidate Khairuzzaman Liton while 16.4 percent supported BNP
candidate Mosaddek Hossain Bulbul and 0.9 percent was for other candidates.

The premier’s adviser said about 12.3 percent voters were yet to take
their decision and 9.6 percent declined to comment while the sample size of
the survey in Rajshahi was 1,294 voters.

In Sylhet, Joy said, about 33 percent voters preferred to see AL’s Badar
Uddin Ahmed Kamran as their mayor while 28.1 percent wanted Ariful Haque
Chowdhury of BNP when 1.3 percent favoured other candidates.

He said about 12.6 percent voters in Sylhet refused to comment as
approached by the survey team while the sample size there was 1,196 voters.

“The margin of error (of the surveys) is approximately 2.5 percent,” Joy
said.

The premier’s adviser said RDC was conducting opinion polls for the past
five years and “I have found their methods and results to be the most
accurate”.

He, however, said of course with the campaigns in full swing until
midnight last night the results might vary slightly from these polls which
were conducted over the past one month.

Joy said BNP kept making “all sorts of complaints” but the fact was that it
lost “all popularity” while Awami League, on the other hand, gained “more and
more popularity over the years”.

“The BNP is no longer an electoral threat to the Awami League,” he
commented.

Joy urged Awami League members, law enforcers and electoral officers to be
vigilant against possible BNP attempts to seize polling centres and stuff
ballots to blame the ruling party.

“You have all heard recorded phone conversations of BNP leaders plotting
exactly this in the Gazipur elections…they are actively attempting to frame
the Awami League in an attempt to make these elections controversial,” he
added.