With rare exceptions here and there, it was basically the ruling party candidates and their ‘rebel’ candidates who won the elections. And so like the 2014 national election, the local government elections also became one-sided.
Following the lopsided national elections of 2014, the Awami League as a party decided to hold local government elections on a partisan basis. The question is why has the party decided to change this stance after another one-sided election in 2024?
This time in the national elections, Awami League resorted to fielding ‘dummy’ candidates as a strategy to make the elections look like a competition.
As a result of this ‘dummy candidate’ strategy, party leaders in many areas contested the elections as independent candidates. In this inter-poll situation, there was violence and deaths at many places and a large number of people were injured. The struggle spread to the grassroots level.
Awami League leaders discussed the issue of this party conflict in a party meeting on Monday. In the meeting they came to the conclusion that differences had emerged at the grassroots level due to the contest between the party and independent candidates in the Jatiya Sangsad elections. Now if someone was given a party symbol in the local government elections, others would contest the elections independently.