Jamaat's Delawar Loses Thakurgaon-1 for a Second Time: Votes Down About 44,500 from February as Margin Widens to 131,336
BNP-nominated candidate Mirza Faisal Amin has won the Thakurgaon-1 by-election by a huge margin in the unofficial results. He defeated his nearest rival, Jamaat-e-Islami candidate Delawar Hossain, by 131,336 votes.
It is the second time Jamaat candidate Delawar Hossain has lost in this constituency. He also received fewer votes this time than he did in the 13th national parliamentary election on 12 February.
In that national election in Thakurgaon-1, Delawar Hossain contested against the BNP's then secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir and received 141,017 votes. Mirza Fakhrul, with the sheaf of paddy symbol, received 238,836 votes, and Delawar lost by 97,819 votes.
In this by-election, that margin has widened to 131,336 votes. After his first vote showing, Delawar had hoped to win this time, but he lost by a large margin to Mirza Fakhrul's brother, Mirza Faisal Amin.
The by-election was held after the Thakurgaon-1 parliamentary seat was declared vacant when Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir assumed office as President. Delawar Hossain was declared the candidate of the 11-party unity for the by-election.
On 31 August, at a rally at the Thakurgaon district Jamaat office, Md Delawar Hossain was formally declared the candidate on behalf of the 11-party unity. The chief guest at the rally was Jamaat assistant secretary general and Rangpur-Dinajpur region director Maulana Abdul Halim.
Delawar Hossain is a central working committee member of Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami and an assistant secretary of Dhaka Metropolitan South. He is a former central president of Bangladesh Islami Chhatra Shibir.
Returning Officer and District Election Officer Kamrul Islam unofficially declared Mirza Faisal Amin the winner at around 8:45 pm on Thursday (29 October).
Earlier on Thursday, voting began simultaneously at 8 am at the constituency's 185 polling centres and continued until 4 pm. Counting began afterwards.
According to the district election office, Thakurgaon-1 has a total of 516,138 voters. Turnout in this by-election was 64.77 percent.
A total of five candidates contested the election: Mirza Faisal Amin of the BNP with the sheaf of paddy, Delawar Hossain of Jamaat-e-Islami with the scales, Md Abdul Alim Nizami of Bangladesh Khelafat Andolon with the banyan tree, Md Khademul Islam of Islami Andolon Bangladesh with the hand fan, and Hussain Muhammad Omar Farooq of Bangladesh Congress with the green coconut.
