After the declaration of the schedule for the Barishal City Corporation election, the election process officially came into force from June 13. Till the time of filing this report four candidates of the BNP, JaPa, IAB and CPB had collected nomination forms from the Election Commission for one mayor, 102 for 30 the general ward councillors’ posts and 19 for 10 ward councillors reserved for females, but no form had been submitted, said Helal Uddin, district election officer and assistant returning officer for BCC election.

BCC has 40 councillor seats including 10 reserved for women. The municipal area is spread over 58 sq km. At present, the number of voters is 2,42,166 including 1,21,432 male and 1,20,730 female voters, EC office sources said.

The Awami League has already finalized the name of Serniabad Sadek Abdullah, city AL joint secretary and son of district AL president, lawmaker Abul Hasnat Abdullah, as the mayor candidate. Iqbal Hossain Tapos, central body member and businessman, has been recommended by the district and city unit of the party as BCC mayor candidate of the Jatiya Party (Ershad), said Mohsin Ul Islam Habul, district JP President.

After the enactment of the BCC Act on April 4, 2001, Barishal divisional headquarters and the municipality were upgraded to a City Corporation on July 25, 2002. Mojibor Rahman Sarwar was first elected mayor of BCC in the election of March 20, 2003. However, he was arrested by the military-backed caretaker government before completing his tenure as the BCC mayor. AL backed candidate Shawkat Hossain Hiron was elected as the second BCC mayor by defeating BNP-backed candidate Sarfuddin Ahmed Sentu with a margin of a few hundred votes in the election held on August 4, 2008.