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Major (retd) Shahjahan Omar, former BNP vice chairman who left the party, and was nominated by the ruling Awami League (AL) for the Jhalakathi-1 constituency, secured a landslide victory by a huge margin of votes in the 12th National Parliamentary Election.
Shahjahan was elected by 95,478 votes while his rival Abu Bakkar with the "rose" symbol got only 1,624 votes, as per UNB reports.
Jatiya Party-backed candidate Ezazul Huq bagged 1,272 votes in the election held at 90 polling stations.
Detective police picked up Shahjahan from a house in Dhaka in the early hours of November 5 as a suspect in a case filed over burning a bus. The same day, a Dhaka court placed him on remand for four days in the case.
On November 29, the then BNP Vice Chairman Shahjahan walked out of jail after securing bail from a Dhaka court. The following day, he submitted a nomination paper online as an Awami League candidate for the Jhalakathi-1 constituency. The same day, the BNP expelled him from the party for breaching party discipline.
Shahjahan Omar served as state minister for law during the last BNP-led government.