Bangladesh's ruling party has suffered a fresh blow as the main opposition party-backed candidate won a landslide victory in Saturday's crucial election to become the first mayor of Gazipur City Corporation on the outskirts of the capital Dhaka.

In the prestigious battle of the ballot in the city corporation election in Gazipur, about 37 kilometers away from capital Dhaka, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's Awami League (AL) Party nominated candidate Azmat Ullah Khan lost to ex-Prime Minister Khaleda Zia's Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) supported MA Mannan by a massive margin of 106,577 votes.

Gazipur is the second largest city corporation in the South Asian country with an area of 329.53 square kilometers and a total of 1,026,964 voters, among which 499,181 are male and 527,783 are female.

Mannan polled 365,444 votes to Ajmat's 258,867 votes, Returning Officer Motiar Rahman told reporters Sunday morning.

The result came as a big shock for AL, which has been searching reasons behind its defeats in four city corporations last month.

Hasina's 14-party ruling coalition saw "major erosion" of popularity as the main opposition BNP-backed mayor aspirants triumphed over AL-blessed candidates in elections of four division- level cities.

Although such municipal elections in the South Asian country are to be held in a non-partisan manner, but political parties indirectly nominate candidates to test their popularity at local level elections.

Like mayoral elections in Sylhet, Rajshahi, Barisal and Khulna, the two major political parties have not only nominated their candidate for the city poll but also gone for huge campaign in support of their mayoral post aspirants.

Mannan, who won the 1991 national elections from a Gazipur constituency, acted in the 1991-96 cabinet of the then Prime Minister Khaleda Zia as a state minister.

In his instant reaction, Mannan said BNP would also win in all elections in future.

He said Hasina government's misrule, its repression against opposition men and Islamists and support for atheists were the main reasons behind his success.

Analysts say the victory just a few months ahead of the next parliamentary elections slated for early 2014 will surely boost the spirits of the main opposition BNP, which has long been demanding resignation of the incumbent AL-led government and an early national election after restoration of a non-party caretaker government system.

BNP says that landslide victory of its candidate signaled that popularity of Hasina's over-four-year-old government faded largely.

BNP Acting Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir Sunday said people expressed their no-confidence in the incumbent AL government through their ballots in Saturday's city corporation election.

He said the people cast their ballots in favor of BNP's demand of caretaker government for the next general elections slated for early 2014.

"Had it been a true democratic government, it would have resigned after the result of the election as this is a total no- confidence to the government."

Hasina's party that has two-thirds majority in parliament annulled the caretaker government system after the country's Supreme Court on May 2011 repealed the 13th amendment in the country's constitution, through which the caretaker system was institutionalized in 1996 by the then BNP government under pressure from the then main opposition AL, now the ruling party.

Communications Minister Obaidul Quader, who is also an AL presidium member, said the election results in Gazipur had landed the AL in an awkward situation.

He said many local and national issues and the party's weaknesses were among the reasons for the debacle at the Gazipur polls.

"It is an opportunity to learn from the defeat at the Gazipur polls. If we can utilize this opportunity, we will be able to avoid defeat in the next parliamentary election," Quader was quoted as saying in a report of Dhaka's leading English newspaper, the Daily Star.