Comilla gets first female mayor

Tahsin Bahar Suchona, daughter of MP AKM Bahauddin Bahar, has unofficially won in the Comilla City Corporation (COCC) by-polls.
Tahsin Bahar, also organizing secretary of Comilla city unit Awami League, contested in the polls with the bus symbol and got 48,890 votes.
Returning officer Farhad Hossain announced the result from the Comilla District School Auditorium on Saturday evening.
Her nearest rival candidate BNP leader Monirul Haque Sakku, who contested in the by-polls under the Table Clock symbol, got 26, 897 votes.
Nizam Uddin Kaiser (Horse), former president of Comilla city unit Swechhasebak Dal, got 13,155 votes.
Noor ur Rahman Mahmud Tanim, a candidate with the Elephant symbol, got 5,173 votes.
The voting took place in 105 centres across 27 wards. There are 118,282 male voters, 124,278 female voters, and two third-gender voters.
On December 13, Comilla City Corporation mayor Arfanul Haque Rifat passed away while undergoing treatment at a hospital in Singapore.
Later, on January 22, the Election Commission fixed March 9 for the by-polls. The government announced a public holiday on that day in the city.
The voting was through Electronic Voting Machine (EVM). The first election of this city corporation was held on January 5, 2012 and the second election of the city was held on March 30, 2017.
In 2012, Sakku contested as an independent candidate and defeated veteran Awami League leader Afzal Khan by over 35,000 votes in the first election to the city corporation. In 2017, he won against Afzal Khan’s daughter Anjum Sultana Sima by a margin of around 11,000 votes. On June 15, 2022, the third election took place where late Rifat defeated Sakku in a tight battle — by a margin of 343 votes.