Awami League General Secretary Obaidul Quader said on Thursday that internal problems resulted in the defeat of their party-nominated candidate in Rangpur City Corporation (RCC) election held on Tuesday. 

He said this while exchanging views with journalists at the conference room of the secretariat in the capital.

“Mayor will be from the plough, the second will be the boat---most of the people had the idea over the RCC elections. But all the accounts were overturned in the result of the vote. The AL candidate lost her collateral being fourth in the race,” he said, adding that there are problems there and it was not supposed to be defeated by the margin seen.

Read more: JaPa’s Mostafizur Rahman Mostafa elected as RCC mayor for second consecutive time

Asked about the debacle of the party-sponsored candidate, he said the Jatiya Party-backed candidate was ahead in the pre-election survey and there were some problems inside them (AL).

Apart from this, it was a local government election and many factors are considered in such an election, Quader observed.

“We came to know earlier that the Jatiya Party candidate was ahead of the other candidates. The government party didn’t make any exaggeration here—for that we didn’t try to force power to go ahead and from these aspects democracy won,” he said.

Quader, also road, transport and bridges minister, said they are looking into the facts behind the debacle and going to take a tougher organisational action within one week.

Read more: Voting for Rangpur City Corporation election tomorrow

Minister Quader, who became the party’s GS for the third consecutive time, names of members of the central committee will be announced within one to two day.