Doli Khan has been elected for the 4th term, including the last three consecutive ones. Because the illiteracy rate is so high in Bangladesh, election candidates are identified by a symbol, not just their name. Until this 4th term election, she was given the voting symbol Kolsi(Pitcher) for the last 3 terms. So, it had become her own election symbol. The popularity of the Kolsi symbol knew no bounds. The rank and file people knew that the Kolsi meant the symbol of Doli. And they are used to voting for Kolsi every term. The pitcher is a very popular symbol to the ordinary peasant women as it is used to bring water from any water sources.

This time, the biased local election commission allotted the symbol of Kolsi (the pitcher known as Doli’s symbol) to Kazi Monira, who has always been defeated by Doli Khan. On the other hand, Doli has been allotted a football symbol although, Doli asked for the Kolsi symbol as hers. The local election deliberately allotted Kolsi to Munira in order to defeat Doli Khan in the election. They thought that the common people voters would vote for the Kolsi symbol taking Doli’s symbol into account.

Their strategy was correct, but not hundred percent. This strategy has cut some votes of Doli, but it was not enough to defeat her. Doli Khan bagged 33000 votes, while Munira got only 20237. Doli got 12812 votes more than that of Munira. 1561 votes were cancelled due to being sealed twice, once in Kolsi and again in football. The illiterate rural woman as usual sealed on the Kolsi symbol, pondering to be the symbol of Doli and immediately, when it was remembered that her symbol was Kolsi, they stamped again on the football. Maximum cancelled votes were found likewise.

The local ruling party took some other policy as well, such as they set fake candidates to reduce the votes of Doli. These candidates cast a very small quantity of votes. The contest mainly took place between Doli Khan and Kazi Munira. During the election campaign, it was quite clear that Doli Khan was representative of the poor, landless, peasants and destitute people in the locality and Kazi Munira was blessed by the local elite class. Munira spent a huge amount of money to get the votes of the people. In some cases, there is an accusation of purchasing votes by Munira, but it has been done very secretly. Whereas, Doli Khan had the plus point that she is the daughter of comrade Abdus Satter Khan and BKF and BKS have very strong organizational hegemony in the constituency. She spent only a small amount of money for the campaign, which was allowed by the election commission.

The victory of Doli Khan will have a positive impact in the locality where we have a historical land occupation movement. And still the occupation movement is going on there. Furthermore, it would also be effective for the sustainability of the landless people who are in the khasland (fallow land) and also who have already received a permanent settlement. Because the big local landowners, musclemen and land terrorists are always trying to expropriate the landless people from their possessed land through various means. Now the landless people would be courageous that they have elected representatives who will help them in their difficulty. They will be able to share their woes and agonies.

Doli Khan has been doing so before and after the day she was elected as vice-chairman of Dashmina Upazila under Patuakhali District in Bangladesh since 2010.

Badrul Alam
President
Bangladesh Krishok Federation