Ehsanul Haque Jasim :The country’s first ever party-basis municipal election is going to take place today (Wednesday) amid fear of violence and vote rigging by different quarters. Around 7.45 million voters will exercise their rights of franchise to elect mayors and councilors in 234 municipalities. The voting will begin at 8:00am and will continue until 5:00pm without break.According to the Election Commission (EC), it has taken all preparations to hold the polls with deployment of adequate numbers of law enforces in the field to ensure free and fair election in all municipalities. EC officials said, the Awami League has fielded 228 mayor candidates against the BNP’s 225. Another 288 are contesting as independent candidates — most of them dissidents of the two parties who could not get party nominations. 20 political parties are taking part in the elections. The two major parties face each other in the battle of ballots for the first time in the last seven years after the 2008 Parliamentary elections. In the last municipal polls held five years ago, AL-backed candidates won in 131 municipalities and the BNP-endorsed ones in 117 municipalities. Of the 131 AL-backed mayors, 65 incumbent mayors got AL nomination for today’s polls. On the other hand, 55 incumbent mayors get nomination from the BNP.Winding up several days of hectic electioneering, the campaign for the polls ended at midnight on Monday. On the other hand, the outsiders are not allowed in the polling areas from Tuesday midnight. Earlier, the ruling Awami League-nominated seven mayor candidates were elected unopposed.According to the Commission, more than 100,000 members of law enforcement agencies, including Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB), Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), police, Coast Guard and Ansar have already been put on election duty to ensure total safety and security.It said the law enforcers as well as executive and judicial magistrates have already gone to the field. About 45,000 police personnel, 9,000 BGB personnel, 8,824 RAB, 255 coast guards, 49,728 Ansar-VDP and 4,512 personnel of Battalion-Ansar will be on poll duty for four days. Ballots, transparent ballot boxes, irremovable ink and other polls materials have already been sent to the polling areas, said officials of the Election Commission Secretariat. In addition, 1,204 executives and judicial magistrates began their pool duty from Monday to look after the overall security. The voters will elect over 3,000 candidates from over 12,000 aspirants. The 234 municipalities that go to polls have as many 2,193 mayor posts and 731 general and reserved councillor seats respectively. There are 8,786 candidates contesting for general councillor seats and 2,480 for reserved posts. Among them, 94 councillors and 40 women councillors have won uncontested alongside the seven mayors. This is for the first time that the country’s political parties are taking part in the municipal polls with their party symbols. A total of 945 candidates from 20 political parties and independent contestants are in the fray for the mayor posts.Meanwhile, the EC has cautioned six MPs over violating the electoral code of conduct; two returning officers have been transferred while six police OCs have been withdrawn.Besides, at least 12 candidates have been issued show-cause notices by returning officers.On polling day, 20 law enforcers will be posted in each sensitive polling centre.Expressing fear of ‘violence and massive irregularities’, the BNP has instructed its candidates and their polling agents not to leave the polling centres ‘under any circumstances’ during the casting of ballots, and that they stay there till the announcement of the election results.On the other hand, the ruling Awami League has also instructed its grassroots leaders and activists to ‘assist’ the local administration in conducting a peaceful election. AL Presidium Member Nooh-Ul-Alam Lenin said that they have directed the party men to guard the polling centres so that BNP men cannot create chaos or taint the government’s image centering the local body polls. AL and BNP complained each other to the EC on Tuesday. They met Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Kazi Rakibuddin Ahmed at his office, just a day before the elections.AL Joint General Secretary Mahbubul Alam Hanif, who led the ruling party’s four-member delegation, urged the EC to play an impartial role during the municipal polls. After the meeting, he told reporters that the BNP took additional benefits in conducting campaigns for the polls.He also said, “The overall law and order situation at grassroots level is good. So we expect the polls will be held in a free and fair manner.”Expressing grave concern over pre-polls violence, the BNP urged the EC to take necessary steps for holding the polls in a transparent manner. “We have conveyed our concern over the violence to the CEC,” said Dr Abdul Moyeen Khan, a standing committee member of the party who led the six-member BNP delegation. Moyeen Khan told reporters that around 5,000 leaders and activists of BNP and its different front and associate bodies have been detained in false cases in the past six weeks. Three BNP men have been killed and over 300 injured in the pre-polls violence. BNP Joint Secretary General Ruhul Kabir Rizvi Ahmed at a press briefing in the party’s Nayapaltan central office on Tuesday alleged that the government has hatched conspiracies to manipulate the result of today’s polls. Police and RAB are conducting joint drives to ensure that people don’t go to the polling centres to cast their votes, he added.Rizvi urged the party’s leaders and activists to turn up at the polling centres and cast their votes to foil ‘this heinous plot’.CEC Kazi Rakibuddin Ahmad said that the situation is almost peaceful except for a few sporadic incidents of violence and it will improve.
