Staff Reporter:
The third phase of the country’s sixth Upazila Parishad Election to be held in 87 upazilas in the country today.
The voting will begin at 8:00am and will continue till 4:00 pm without any break.
A total of 1,196 candidates are in the electoral race against 261 posts of 87 Upazila Parishads.
The candidates include 397 chairman contenders, 456 vice chairman and 299 women (reserved) vice chairman contestants.
More than 2.08 crore voters – 1,06,40,347 males, 1,02,34,723 females and 114 transgender persons — are registered under 7,450 polling stations in the 87 upazilas, according to the factsheets provided by the Election Commission on Tuesday.
Among them, the electronic voting machines will be used at 16 upazilas in seven districts, while the traditional ballot papers in the rest upazilas.
On April 18, the Election Commission announced the election schedule for 112 upazila parishads to conduct the balloting in the third phase.
But the commission later postponed elections to 24 upazila parishads on different grounds. Among them, the balloting in 22 upazilas was suspended due to cyclone Remal, one upazila (Raipura in Narsingdi) for the death of a candidate and another upazila for legal complexities.
Besides, all the candidates against three posts – chairman and two vice chairman posts – were already elected uncontested finding no rival contender against their respective posts in Bhandaria Upazila of Pirojpur.
A security team of 17-19 members would guard each polling station in the plain districts, while a security team of 19-21 members would protect a polling station in the Chittagong hill tracts and very remote areas.
This time, the Election Commission is arranging the sixth upazila parishad election in four phases. The commission has already declared the election schedule to hold polls in some 480 upazilas out of the country’s 495 upazilas.
The first phase election was held in 139 upazila parishads of 59 districts on May last 8, while the second phase election in 156 upazilas on May 21 last . The 4th phase election to more than 50 upazilas will be held on June 5 next.
