Voters are heading to the polling stations on Thursday morning to elect the mayor of Dhaka North and councillors of 49 wards in both areas of the bifurcated city corporation amid a boycott by most of the parties.
Voting will continue at about 1,700 centres from 8:00 am to 4:00 pm on Thursday. But bad weather comes as a damper on voters.
There are about 4 million voters in these areas. It is a public holiday in the election areas which will be enjoyed by the entire Dhaka North and some wards of Dhaka South.
Officials involved in public exams will, however, not be having the holiday. The EC has banned motorcycles in Dhaka North from Tuesday midnight to Friday midnight.
Traffic will also be restricted for 24 hours from Wednesday midnight.
The restrictions will be loosened at main roads, intersections, city entrances and exits, and the highways under the city corporation, the commission said. There are a total of 322 contenders in the elections, including for the posts of councillors in 18 new wards in North and as many in South.
Twelve other councillor posts have been reserved for women while by-election is being held to a ward in North after the death of the councillor. Nineteen law enforcers have been deployed in each of the centres while the significant ones have gotten four more.
Some 72 executive magistrates are conducting mobile courts in North and 24 in South to maintain law and order. The Awami League’s Atiqul Islam with ‘boat’ symbol and the Jatiya Party’s Shafin Ahmed with ‘plough’ are seen as the two main contenders running for Dhaka North City Corporation mayor.
The others in the fray are National People’s Party or NPP’s Anisur Rahman with ‘mango’ symbol, Progressive Democratic Party or PDP’s Shahin Khan with ‘tiger’ and independent candidate Abdur Rahim with ‘table clock’.
Atiqul will cast his vote at Nawab Habibullah Model School and College centre in Uttara and Shafin at Manarat International School centre.
The mayoral post fell vacant after former DNCC mayor Annisul Huq passed away on November 30, 2017, resulting in this mayoral by-elections.
Many of the voters expressed a lack of enthusiasm in this by-elections with the main rival of the ruling party staying away.
The voters, however, added they would cast their votes to exercise their democratic rights.
The BNP, its allies and most other parties are staying away from elections to local government bodies like city corporations and Upazilas after losing the Dec 30 parliamentary polls by a huge margin to the Awami League, bdnews24.com reports.
The party headed by Khaleda Zia, who is in jail for over a year now for corruption, had demanded fresh polls alleging widespread rigging and intimidation of its candidates and supporters in the general election.
Even the Election Commission, which celebrated the “successes” in the parliamentary polls, admitted it was "at unease” due to “a lack of public interest” in the Dhaka city elections.
On the eve of the voting, Chief Election Commissioner KM Nurul Huda said: “Not all the parties joined the polls, but we have nothing to do with it. It’s their political decision.”
"It doesn’t mean a lack of confidence in us, but it’s uncomfortable for us.” The CEC himself is a voter of Dhaka North and will cast his vote at IES School and College in Uttara.
