Counting of votes started after balloting in 166 upazilas of the country’s 16 districts ended at 4 pm in the second phase of the fifth upazila parishad elections today. Earlier, the voting started at 8 am in a festive mood and continued
peacefully till 4pm uninterruptedly with spontaneous participation of the voters.
Today was a general holiday in the respective upazilas on the occasion of the local body election. In the second phase, a total of 377 candidates for chairman post, 539 for vice vice-chairman and 394 for women vice-chairman contested the polls.
The districts where polling was held are Thakurgaon, Rangpur, Gaibandha, Dinajpur, Bogura, Naogaon, Pabna, Sylhet, Moulvibazar, Gopalganj, Faridpur, Chattogram, Rangamati, Khagrachhari, Bandarban and Cox’s Bazar.
Meanwhile, 23 chairman, 13 vice-chairman and 12 women vice-chairman have
already been elected uncontested in the 2nd phase of upazila polls in absence
of any valid candidates to fight against them.
A large number of security personnel, including police, Rapid Action
Battalion (RAB), Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) and Coast Guard, have been
deployed in the election areas since Saturday and they will remain deployed
till Wednesday.
A security team comprising of 14-16 members drawn from police, Ansar and
VDP was deployed at each polling station today.
Along with law enforcement agencies, army personnel were also deployed in
eight upazilas of Khagrachhari, seven upazilas of Bandarban and 10 upazilas
of Rangamati for maintaining security in the Hill Track districts.
The first-phase of upazila polls was held on March 10 in 78 upazilas.
Earlier, the EC declared 2nd phase of upazila polls which was held on February 7. The third phase of upazila polls is scheduled to be held on March 24 and the fourth phase on March 31. The first upazila election was held in 1985, while the following three were held in 1990, 2009 and 2014.
(BSS)
