Mahmudur Rahman Manna withdraws from Dhaka-18 race citing high election costs

Nagarik Oikya President Mahmudur Rahman Manna has announced that he will not contest the 13th Jatiya Sangsad election from the Dhaka-18 constituency, just three days ahead of the polls, citing the high cost of campaigning.

However, he will remain in the race from Bogura-2 as a candidate of Nagarik Oikya.

Manna made the announcement at around 11:45pm last night through a post on his verified Facebook page. In the post, he said the financial burden of contesting the election in Dhaka-18 had become impossible for him to bear.

"Elections have become so expensive that it is not possible for me to manage the costs. Under these circumstances, I have decided to withdraw from the electoral race in Dhaka-18," he wrote.

Explaining the decision to BBC Bangla, Manna said he had been trying for about a week to see whether he could manage the expenses, but ultimately failed to do so.

"Dhaka-18 is an extremely expensive constituency. There are more than 250 polling centres. On election day, each centre requires separate expenditure. There are also daily costs - campaign expenses, workers' costs. I'm not in a position to hire event management firms. I wanted to continue and hoped to find a solution, but in the end, I couldn't manage it," he said.

In his Facebook post, Manna noted that under special circumstances he had initially decided to contest from both Dhaka-18 and Bogura-2. Dhaka-18 is a large constituency comprising seven and a half police station areas, with around 650,000 voters, making the election particularly costly.

He also expressed regret if anyone felt hurt by his decision.

Mahmudur Rahman Manna is currently in Bogura, where he will continue his election campaign and contest the polls from the Bogura-2 constituency under the banner of Nagarik Oikya.