Sagar Biswas :Like the ongoing union parishad elections, the third phase polls in the country’s nine municipalities was held on Wednesday amid gross irregularities, ballot stuffing and vote rigging by the supporters of ruling party-backed candidates. The election was held in Ghorashal and Raypura municipalities of Narsingdi district; Laxmipur of Laxmipur district; Kasba of Brahmanbaria; Noakhali and Senbagh of Noakhali; Chhagalnaiya of Feni; Teknaf of Cox’s Bazar and Ramgarh of Khagrachhari district.Of them, the situation in Feni was highly tensed where hundreds of local hoodlums and hired goons with direct patronization of law enforcement agencies besieged all 10 polling centres of Chhagolnaya municipality since early morning, local sources said.They resisted the polling agents of BNP candidate from entering the voting centres. Not only that, the miscreants equipped with different lethal weapons also threatened the voters as they could not go to thepolling booths for casting their votes.The scenario was also the same in Noakhali Sadar municipality where armed cadres of ruling party-backed candidate forcibly occupied about 20 polling centres at gun point. The armed goons also took position around the voting centres and heavily beat the polling agents of BNP nominated candidate, according to information received in Dhaka.Particularly, the situation was worse at Sonapur Ahamedia High School , Mohabbatpur Pouro Community Primary School, Karamotia Alia Madrassa, Brother Andre High School, Pravati School and some other centres. It was alleged that, the on-duty magistrate and other officials of law enforcement agencies did not take any action despite repeated complaints by the local people.Local sources said, the miscreants took control of eight polling centres out of ten at Kasba municipality in Brahmanbaria district just a few minutes after the vote casting began. One presiding officer Md Shahidul Amin openly sealed ballot papers in favour of ruling party-backed candidate. The officials concerned of law enforcement agencies allegedly did not take any action despite getting protest from BNP-backed contender. “In the elections, 21 candidates have fought with party support and five have competed independently for mayor position. Besides, a total of 315 candidates fought for member posts and 70 for reserve posts,” Rajib Ahsan, Assistant Secretary, election management branch of EC, said. “Teknaf mayor candidate and eights member candidates of Ghorashal and Kasba municipalities have already been elected uncontested. The number of voters was 3, 13,691 while the polling centers were 133.In the first phase polls held in 227 municipalities on December 30, the Awami League candidates won in 177 municipalities, BNP in 22 and Jatiya Party in one. Apart from it, the independent candidates won in 26 municipalities at that time, according to officials. In the second phase election, the ruling party candidates won in all 10 municipalities.Meanwhile, the opposition BNP has alleged that the supporters of pro-Awami candidates created a reign of terror in different municipalities during the election. “They [AL supporters] captured 20 voting centres in Noakhali Sadar municipality before the election started. The pro-AL cadres did the same in Chhagalnaiya municipality. They captured 10 centres of Kashba municipality with the help the members of the law enforcement agencies,” Ruhul Kabir Rizvi, senior joint secretary general, BNP said yesterday.
