Chittagong is prepared for the city corporation election today.
The Election Commission’s Chittagong office has sent voting materials to the polling centres and law enforcers have started patrolling the city and guarding the centres.
Presiding officials collected all the necessary equipment from the gymnasium of MA Aziz Stadium, Assistant Returning Officer Shafiqur Rahman told the Dhaka Tribune.
“We took control of the entire stadium area with four phases of security belts. No one is allowed to enter the area 12 hours before and after the election date, except for the designated EC officials and law enforcement members,” Returning Officer Md Abdul Baten said.
Police barred movement of any sort of motor vehicle for 24 hours starting from 12am today; only ambulances and service providing vehicles are allowed to ply the city streets. Also, vehicles carrying the EC permit, as well as vehicles for press election observers are out of the purview of the restriction, Shafiq said.
A total of 1,813,449 voters in Chittagong are expected to vote today to elect the mayor and ward councillors for Chittagong City Corporation. Voting is scheduled to start at 8am and continue until 4pm.
A total of 12 candidates are running for mayor, while 216 are contesting in 41 general wards and 62 women are contesting in 14 reserved seats for ward councillor posts.
A total of 17,000 police and Ansar members have been deployed inside 719 poll centres across the city, while 5,000 personnel of Rapid Action Battalion and 30 platoons of Border Guard Bangladesh have been deployed outside the poll centres. Besides, a battalion of Bangladesh Army are on standby to tackle untoward situations.
Across the city, 140 executive magistrates and 10 judicial magistrates have been appointed to maintain law and order. Fourteen vigilance teams, each led by an assistant returning officer, will monitor all poll activities.
Chittagong Metropolitan Police have installed check posts at all entry points of the port city. CMP Commissioner Abdul Jalil Mandal said the check posts would be monitored round the clock from the CMP headquarters through close-circuit television cameras.