Oikya Kalyan Parishad sweeps HAAB polls

Staff Reporter :

Full panel of HAAB Oikya Kalyan Parishad led by Syed Golam Sarwar and Farid Ahmed Majumdar has won the biannual election of HAAB Hajj Agencies Association of Bangladesh (HAAB) on Saturday.

The Election Commission has announced the result, comprising representatives of the Commerce Ministry, after a day-long election at the Diploma Engineers Institution (IDEB) auditorium in the capital.

According to the HAAB election commission, 701 voters of the organisation have exercised their voting rights at three centres – Dhaka, Chattogram, and Sylhet. Of those, 596 voters were casted their votes in Dhaka, 75 in Chattogram, and 30 in Sylhet.

The three executive members of the Sylhet zone for the 27-member executive committee were elected unopposed, while the voters voted for 21 members from the Dhaka zone and three members from the Chattogram zone.

At the same time, the voters have elected their leaders for the three zonal committees.

In this election, two other panels – HAAB Oikya Forum led by former president Faruk Ahmed Sarder, and HAAB Anti-Discrimination Democratic Alliance led by former secretary general M.A. Rashid Shah Samrat and Anti-Discrimination Hajj agencies leader Md. Akhteruzzaman – are contested the polls.

HAAB’s founding president, Dr. Muhammad Faruq, former Member of Parliament of BNP Abdul Gafur Bhuiyan, former HAAB presidents Abdus Shakur, Jamal Uddin Ahmed, and Iqbal Bahar, Abdus Sobhan Bhuiyan, former vice president Maulana Yakub Sharafati, Association of Travel Agencies of Bangladesh’s (ATAB) former Manjur Mahbub Morshed and Mandur Ahmed Kalam, and Secretary Generals Kazi Mofizur Rahman and Aslam Khan have been supported the HAAB Oikya Kalyan Parishad panel.

Responding to the demands of the travel agencies, the government recently dissolved the previous committee of HAAB, one year before the end of its tenure, and declared a polling schedule to elect new leadership.