Panchagarh, the “daughter of the Himalayas” district in Bangladesh’s northernmost region, is where the numbering of National Parliamentary constituencies begins.
Constituency number one, Panchagarh-1, comprises Panchagarh Sadar, Atwari, and Tetulia upazilas. Historically, the main contest here was between the BNP and the Awami League.
However, Jatiya Ganotantrik Party (JAGPA) President Shafiul Alam Prodhan had garnered a significant personal vote share. He passed away back in 2017.
In the upcoming 13th Parliamentary Election, the Awami League is absent from the race. Three prominent leaders from smaller parties have now stepped forward to challenge the BNP on this electoral battlefield.
They are Sarjis Alam of the National Citizen Party (NCP), Rashed Prodhan of JAGPA, and Nazmul Haque Prodhan of the Bangladesh Jatiya Party (BJP). These three candidates have complicated the electoral equation here.
Panchagarh-1, known as a BNP stronghold, elected the party’s prominent central leader Mirza Golam Hafiz in 1991. He received 39.8 per cent of the vote that year, while his nearest rival, an Awami League candidate, got 31.5 per cent.
The then JAGPA President Shafiul Alam Prodhan received about 15 per cent of the vote. The vote share for the Jatiya Party was also not insignificant, reaching 9.3 per cent. Jamaat-e-Islami did not field a candidate in this constituency that year.
In the 12 June 1996 election, BNP’s Barrister Jamir Uddin Sircar won this seat with 35.4 per cent of the vote, against the nearest Awami League candidate’s 29.6 per cent.
In that election, contesting with the “Langal” [plough] symbol as part of an alliance with the Jatiya Party, JAGPA’s Shafiul Alam Prodhan received about 23.5 per cent of the vote. Jamaat, contesting independently, received 10.1 per cent of the vote.
In 2001, the BNP-Jamaat alliance candidate Barrister Jamir Uddin Sircar was elected again, this time with nearly 40 per cent of the vote.
The nearest Awami League candidate received 34.3 per cent. In that election, JAGPA candidate Shafiul Alam Prodhan, running from the Jatiya Party alliance, received 24.8 per cent of the vote.
In the 2008 election, the Awami League and Jatiya Party formed the Grand Alliance. The alliance candidate, Awami League’s Mazharul Haque Prodhan, defeated the BNP-Jamaat alliance’s Jamir Uddin Sircar.
Sircar still received 40.4 per cent of the vote, while the winning candidate got 58.7 per cent.
In the infamous 2018 election marred by overnight voting, the BNP-Jamaat alliance candidate was Barrister Nawshad Zamir, son of Barrister Jamir Uddin Sircar. While votes were cast overnight in almost all constituencies across the country that year, Panchagarh-1 presented a different scenario.
Nawshad Zamir received 41.3 per cent of the vote, slightly more than his father’s previous tallies. The winning Awami League candidate received 54.2 per cent. He has also received the BNP’s nomination for the upcoming 13th Parliamentary Election.
Big leaders from small parties
Following his father’s death, JAGPA Central Spokesperson Rashed Prodhan entered the electoral fray for the first time in 2018 as a “big leader from a small party.” However, in that infamous election, he was not a significant factor.
He is, however, also campaigning in the Panchagarh-2 constituency.
Even earlier, another leader from a smaller party, Nazmul Haque Prodhan of Bangladesh Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal (JSD), entered the electoral field in this constituency. In the 2014 election, boycotted by the opposition, he became a lawmaker as the candidate of the Awami League-led 14-Party Alliance.
The alliance did not nominate him the next time. Instead, following a conflict over candidacy, several leaders split from JSD and formed the Bangladesh Jatiya Party (BJP). Nazmul Haque Prodhan is the General Secretary of this party.
Another small party leader, Sarjis Alam, the Northern Regional Chief Coordinator of the NCP, has entered the race for Panchagarh-1 in the 13th Parliamentary Election.
However, his party does not have much influence in this constituency, nor does he command a significant personal vote bank. Nevertheless, he has consistently received the blessings of the Chief Adviser Muhammad Yunus.
Meanwhile, Jamaat-e-Islami has fielded a candidate in this constituency for the first time since 1996. Their candidate is District Ameer Professor Iqbal Hossain. He also began his election campaign quite early.
BNP’s Nawshad Zamir and Jamaat’s Iqbal Hossain are now joined on the field by the three big leaders from small parties – Sarjis Alam, Rashed Prodhan, and Nazmul Haque Prodhan.
While the BNP has formed an alliance with several parties, none of its allies has a candidate demanding the nomination for Panchagarh-1. On the other hand, JAGPA is set to form an alliance with Jamaat-e-Islami.
If Jamaat cedes this seat to Rashed Prodhan, he could become a major headache for the BNP.
