Polls to 107 more upazilas Sunday

Another 107 upazila parishads go to polls on Sunday in the 4th phase of the local body elections, reports UNB.

Some 25540,704 voters will be able to exercise their voting rights under 9,740 polling stations in the balloting that is set to begin at 8:00am and continue till 4:00pm without any break.

In the 107 upazilas, 351 chairman, 533 vice-chairman and 406 woman vice-chairman candidates are contesting the elections.

Besides, 39 chairman, 22 vice-chairman and 27 woman vice-chairman contestants have already been elected uncontested in absence of any valid candidate to challenge them.

Though the election commission earlier announced the election schedule for 122 upazilas of 22 districts, 15 upazilas where all candidates have already been elected unopposed do not require the balloting, while polls to some other upazilas were postponed on various grounds.

The election to six upazilas will be held using electronic voting machines completely in the fourth phase. The six upazilas are Cox's Bazar sadar, Patuakhali sadar, Mymensingh sadar, Bagerhat sadar, Munshiganj sadar and Feni sadar.

A security team comprising of 14-16 members drawn from police, Ansar and VDP will guard each polling station on the day.

The election commission on Saturday asked three Members of Parliament (MPs) to leave their respective constituencies for maintaining the code of conduct in the 4th phase of the upazila election.

The commission, in letters signed by EC deputy secretary Atiar Rahman, asked them to leave the election areas quickly.

The three MPs are Anwarul Abedin Khan (Mymensingh-9), Ranajit Kumar Roy (Jashore-4) and Mohammed Ekramul Karim Chowdhury (Noakhali-4).

The 5th upazila election will be completed in five phases holding polls to some 480 upazilas out of 492.

The first three phases of the upazila election were held on 10, 18 and 24 March last.