Voting begins in 1st phase UP polls

Voting in the first phase election to 718 Union Parishads began on Tuesday morning.

The balloting began at 8am and will continue till 4pm without any break, reports UNB.

Election to the lowest tier of the local government body is being held along the party lines for the first time, although only for the chairman post.

As many as 14 political parties out of 40 registered ones are participating in the first phase polls, fielding nearly 1800 chairman candidates out of over 3000. The remaining 1200-plus are independent candidates.

Candidates from two major political parties -- ruling Awami League and its archrival BNP -- start as frontrunners in the election. But BNP has no chairman candidate in some 120 UPs whereas AL in only one.

Fifty-four chairman candidates, all from the ruling party, have already been elected unopposed finding no rival against their respective post. They comprise 32 candidates in Bagerhat, 10 in Madaripur, 3 in Gopalganj, two each in Bhola and Brahmanbaria, and one each in Khulna, Satkhira, Barisal, Jhalakati and Munshiganj.

In the first phase election, some 1.19 crore voters are set to exercise their franchise under nearly 7,000 polling stations.

A total of five magistrates – four executive and one judicial- remain deployed in each upazila to curb violation of election code of conduct. More than 180,000 security members -- police, Rab, BGB, Coast Guard and Ansar -- remain deployed in election areas.

Alongside the magistrates, three teams of Rapid Action Battalion (Rab) and three teams of Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) are working as mobile and striking forces in each upazila to maintain electoral environment for the four days.

Besides, mobile teams comprising of police, APBn and Ansar remain deployed in each UP as mobile teams.

For each coastal upazila, two teams (two platoons) of Coast Guard remain as mobile force, while one platoon of the agency is being kept as striking force.

Meanwhile, a 19-member security team comprising five policemen, two Battalion Ansar men with arms and 12 embedded Ansar/VDP members are protecting each vulnerable polling centre.

As part of the first phase election, 718 Ups went to polls on Tuesday, while 11 UPs of Nagarpur of Tangail will go to polls on Wednesday and two UPs of Teknaf of Cox’s Bazar on March 27.

As per factsheet provided by the EC, some 3000 candidates for chairman posts are in the election race, in addition to 7,500 women candidates for reserved seats and over 25,000 contenders for member posts in the phase.

The EC so far announced the election schedule for the first three phases as part of its plan to arrange elections in 4275 out of the country’s 4546 UPs in six phases by June.