By Tuhin Shubhra Adhikary & Md Abbas in The Daily Star, Nov 28, 2023
The Awami League has nominated several controversial incumbents for the January 7 parliamentary election.
Some of them sparked outrage in the party for their unruly and aggressive behaviour while others hogged headlines for all the wrong reasons.
Take the example of Shafiqul Islam Shimul, a lawmaker from Natore-2 since 2014 and also vice-president of Natore AL.
In August 2015, Shimul and his men snatched away a suspect from Rab custody immediately after his arrest.
Natore AL General Secretary Shariful Islam Ramzan and former joint secretary Mortuza Ali Bablu were assaulted allegedly by Shimul and his men over an internal feud in January this year.
In June, Shimul’s supporters threatened to beat up the local correspondent of Bangla daily Jugantor for penning a report on his alleged accumulation of illegal wealth in Canada and Natore.
In 2022, Shimul, being an MP, violated the electoral code of conduct by visiting a polling station during the zila parishad elections.
Earlier, he had violated the code in 2016 by meeting representatives of the local government and urging them to ensure the victory of AL nominees in the zila parishad polls.
In Rajshahi-1, AL lawmaker Omor Faruk Chowdhury, also a former state minister, drew flak for assaulting Salim Reza, principal of Rajbari Degree College, in Godagari upazila in July.
In February 2019, the Election Commission ordered Faruk to leave the upazila for allegedly threatening a chairman candidate before the Godagari upazila parishad polls.
In February this year, he made headlines for asking a group of AL grassroots leaders to vow, touching the holy Quran, to support him in the next national polls.
On November 22, the EC warned him for violating the electoral code of conduct. He held a public meeting on a school ground on November 17, two days after the polls schedule was announced.
Last year, the Anti-Corruption Commission launched a probe into his alleged embezzlement of government funds and irregularities in leasing out government land, recruiting teachers for schools and colleges, and picking fertiliser dealers.
The AL also picked lawmaker Abdus Sobhan Miah Golap of Madaripur-3 even though the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project found that he is an American citizen and he hid the fact from the EC.
The organisation, in its report published earlier this year, said he lied in his affidavit submitted to the EC before the 2018 polls.
According to the report, Golap owns nine properties in New York, and he bought those between 2014 and 2019.
The High Court in February directed the ACC to enquire into the allegations.
In March this year, an allegation was raised against him for not paying the toll for Padma Bridge.
AL nominee Dipu Moni, the education minister and incumbent of Chandpur-3, also caused controversies.
Earlier this year, an investigative report of this newspaper found that Dipu Moni wrote at least 15 times to different government offices to allow a sand lifter to illegally extract sand from the Meghna.
On September 24, the then chairman of the National River Conservation Commission alleged that the people illegally extracting sand from the Meghna have links with a female minister from Chandpur.
He did not name Dipu Moni but she is the lone female minister from Chandpur.
In January this year, Bangla daily Prothom Alo ran a report that some influential people with close ties to Dipu Moni inflated the price of 62.5 acres of land in Chandpur’s Laxmipur union earmarked for setting up Chandpur Science and Technology University.
In Chattogram-16, lawmaker Mustafizur Rahman Chowdhury got the AL ticket again even though he was seen brandishing a firearm in Banshkhali upazila during a procession on May 22.
In January, freedom fighter Salimul Haque Chowdhury of Banshkhali accused Mustafizur’s men of attacking him.
Mustafizur was accused in a case filed over the assault on upazila election officer Zahidul Islam on June 1, 2016. Mustafizur allegedly wanted his men appointed as polling officials for the upazila parishad elections.
Shahin Chaklader of Jeshore-6 has been embroiled in multiple controversies.
On September 25, he reportedly threatened BNP leaders and activists that he would not allow them to return to the district if they joined a BNP programme in Dhaka.
In January 2021, a phone conversation between purportedly Shahin and a police official was leaked. In the audio clip, the police official was asked to bomb a police station and frame a lawyer for it.
On April 28, 2022, Shahin had a heated exchange of words with a judge at a public event in Jashore Circuit House. He criticised the judge for not granting bail for a Chhatra League leader accused of murder.
In Lalmonirhat-2, Social Welfare Minister Nuruzzaman Ahmed came under fire for laying the foundation stone for the expansion of a building, which encroached on railway land in his village.
His son, Rakibuzzaman Ahmed, allegedly turned 36 acres of leased railway land into a park and built a swimming pool despite opposition from railway authorities.
The minister and his family had allegedly racked up around Tk 9 lakh in unpaid power bills between September 2020 and July of this year, reported a Bangla daily.
The office of a power company official who was quoted by the newspaper was vandalised.
Fahmi Gulandaz Babel from Mymensingh-10 is accused of torturing BNP leaders and rivals in his own party, according to media reports.
Many leaders of the AL and its associate bodies were forced to leave their locality, the reports claimed.
In June 2022, his associates assaulted two teachers of Gafargaon Government College after demanding extortion money, the reports said, adding that his associates also confined 40 teachers for 10 hours for protesting the assault.
All the lawmakers mentioned refuted the allegations against them when the controversies made headlines.
The Daily Star yesterday tried to reach several top leaders of the AL. Only one picked up the phone but refused to comment on the matter.
https://www.thedailystar.net/news/bangladesh/politics/news/tainted-yet-given-al-ticket-3480601
