Awami League candidate Habibur Rahman Habib won the Sylhet-3 by-polls on Saturday, beating his nearest rival Jatiya Party’s Atikur Rahman Atik by a huge margin. According to official results Habib bagged  90,064 votes in the constituency comprising three upazilas of Dakkhin Surma, Fenchuganj and Balaganj. Atik got only 24,752 votes. Sylhet Deputy Commissioner and Returning Officer Kazi Emdadul Islam announced the results at 9:15 pm on Saturday. Apart from these two candidates, BNP rebel Alhaj Shafi Ahmed Chowdhury got 5,136 votes and Junaid Md Mia of Bangladesh Congress got 640 votes.

The High Court on Monday stayed the by-election to Sylhet-3 constituency till August 5 due to the worsening Covid situation in the country. The virtual  HC bench of Justice M Enayetur Rahim passed the order following a writ petition filed over the election. Read:Sylhet Regional Election Officer dies of Covid The election was scheduled to be held on July28. Earlier in the morning , Advocate Mohammad Shishir Monir, on behalf of six Supreme Court lawyers and seven local voters, including Saleh Ahmed, filed the writ petition seeking stay of the polls. Read: Sylhet scenario as strict lockdown resumes Besides, a legal notice was issued to the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) on Sunday to suspend voting in the polls. The Sylhet-3 constituency fell vacant after MP Mahmud Us Samad Chowdhury died of coronavirus on March 11.