DHAKA — Chhatra Dal is boycotting the Jahangirnagar University Central Students’ Union (JUCSU) election. But something different could have been done without boycotting, said Dr. Mirza Galib, former Dhaka University unit president of Islami Chhatra Shibir and assistant professor at Howard University in the United States. If he were the party’s adviser, even with defeat certain, he would have told them to keep campaigning with a smile all day, he said.
Tanjila Hossain Baishakhi, the general secretary candidate of the Chhatra Dal-backed panel, announced the boycott at a news conference Thursday around 4 p.m. at the guest room of Maulana Bhasani Hall. Voting in the election began that morning and ran until 5 p.m.
Earlier, on Tuesday, the Islami Chhatra Shibir-backed “United Students’ Alliance” won a landslide victory in the Dhaka University Central Students’ Union (DUCSU) election. Out of the central union’s 28 posts, it won 23, including the vice-president (VP) and general secretary (GS) posts.
Sadik Kayem received a total of 14,042 votes for the VP post. His nearest rival, Md. Abidul Islam Khan of the Chhatra Dal-backed panel, received 5,708 votes. Independent candidates Shamim Hossain and Umama Fatima received 3,884 and 3,389 votes, respectively.
Chhatra Dal VP candidate Abidul Islam Khan posted on Facebook around 2 a.m. Wednesday alleging vote rigging in the DUCSU election. “I anticipated the results of this planned rigging shortly after noon. Put whatever numbers you want. I reject this planned farce,” he said.
Galib’s post came Friday afternoon after Chhatra Dal boycotted the JUCSU election. “If I were Chhatra Dal’s adviser, I would have told them to keep campaigning with a smile all day even if defeat was certain. So that after the results, people would feel sorry — those poor boys worked so hard but couldn’t win. That feeling of sympathy would have helped in the next election,” he wrote.
বাংলায় মূল প্রতিবেদন পড়ুন · Read the original Bengali report