March 29, 2024, 10:51 am


FT online

Published:
2019-03-10 21:22:12 BdST

First phase upazila election underway


Voting in the election to 78 Upazila Parishads has started in the first of five phases.

Started at 8:00am, it will continue till 4:00pm without any break.

The size of the electorate in the 78 upazilas is 1,42,48,850 under 5,847 polling stations across 12 districts: Panchagarh, Nilphamari, Lalmonirhat, Kurigram, Jamalpur, Netrakona, Sunamganj, Habiganj, Sirajganj, Joypurhat, Natore and Rajshahi.

Each upazila parishad has a chairman, a vice-chairman and a woman vice-chairman.

Some 207 chairman candidates, 386 vice chairman candidates and 249 woman vice chairman candidates are contesting positions up for grabs in 78 upazilas.

Meanwhile, 15 chairman candidates, six vice-chairman contenders and seven woman vice-chairman contestants have already been elected without a vote being cast, in the absence of any valid candidate to oppose them.

The Public Administration announced a public holiday for this day in the upazilas. 

Additional security forces, including police, Rab, BGB, and Coast Guard, have been deployed in the electoral areas since Friday. They are slated to remain so till Tuesday.

Besides, a judicial magistrate has been deployed in each upazila, and an executive magistrate for every three Union Parishads for the five days to punish any violations of the polls code.

A security team comprising of 15-16 members drawn from police, Ansar and VDP will guard each polling station on the day.

On February 3, the Election Commission announced the election schedule for 87 upazilas in the first phase of the 5th Upazila elections.

Later, the polls to six were postponed on different grounds. Besides, the candidates against all the Union Parishad posts of three upazilas have already been elected uncontested.

The fifth upazila election will be completed in five phases holding polls to some 480 upazilas out of the country's 492 ones, UNB reported.

The EC has so far announced the election schedule for the first four phases. The second phase of the election is slated for March 18, the third for March 24 and the fourth for March 31.

The first upazila election was held in 1985, the second in 1990, the third, with a gap of 19 years instead of regular five years, in 2009, and the fourth and last in 2014.

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