AS the capital is abuzz with campaigns for the city corporation polls, candidates are found using loudspeakers during the hours when it is not permitted by electoral rules. They quite often violate Section 21 of the City Corporation (Electoral Code of Conduct) Rules 2016, which allows the use of loudspeakers between 2:00pm and 8:00pm. The rules further say no candidate, or anyone on his/her behalf, can use more than one microphone or sound amplifier during a campaign or street rally in a city corporation ward. The reality is starkly different.
Of course it isn’t just noise pollution but also visual and other forms of pollution like traffic congestion which city dwellers have to endure. The endless streams of posters in the walls and the banners which are hung in any possible location make Dhaka city look like one where ostentatiousness is everything and where nothing succeeds like excess.
The city dwellers have been enduring songs and slogans played loudly on loudspeaker –
too loud and beyond the permitted hours since the campaign began on January 10. With the SSC exams a little over a week away, students are affected by this noise pollution caused by the long hours of electioneering.
The candidates seem to think that more ostentatious they are their limitations about what they can do and what they cannot without the cooperation of the government. The more ostentatious their ways of campaign the more convincing the voters will be about their ability to serve. They make overblown promises forgetting their limitations without a competent government.
The most important consideration is to emphasise on their own honesty and ability to serve people in the midst of corruption everywhere.
