With the municipal elections only a day away, 1,518 candidates in 29 municipalities under the Khulna division are under a lot of stress regarding the election outcome.
As the deadline for electoral campaigns ended last night, the stress mainly stems from the fact that they cannot interact with voters at field level today, the last day before th elections tomorrow.
Candidates spent the last day of the campaign visiting their voters’ residences to win favour, as reported by our eight district correspondent in Khulna. Braving the cold wave, the candidates tried their level best to ensure voters’ support and presence until midnight.
Sources in the returning offices across the division said all preparation to hold the polls peacefully is complete.
Ballot papers, ballot boxes and other instruments for the elections have already reached the returning officers’ offices, to be distributed later to the presiding officers today.
Among the 1,518 candidates contesting the polls in Khulna, 114 are mayoral candidates, 1,091 are ward councillor candidates and 313 are reserved seat candidates, according to the returning offices.
Most poll centres vulnerable
The Khulna Range of police has identified 369 poll centres out of the 481 under the 29 municipal areas as vulnerable to violence; only 112 poll centres have been marked as safe.
SM Moniruzzaman, deputy inspector general of police for the Khulna Range, told the Dhaka Tribune that nearly 15,000 members police, Ansar, Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) and Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) will be on duty around the Khulna division tomorrow to avert any possible untoward situation in the area.
“The poll centres will be under constant vigilance, especially the vulnerable ones where additional police and Ansar members will be deployed.”
Law enforcers will be deployed both in uniform and plain clothes at strategic points, and a special drive is underway to trace noted criminals in the area in preparation of possible violence, sources in Khulna police told the Dhaka Tribune.
Satkhira district has been identified as the most vulnerable district in the division, as it is a stronghold of Jamaat-e-Islami and its student wing Islami Chhatra Shibir.
“Four executive magistrates will be on duty on the election day in Satkhira Sadar municipality, and two magistrates will be stationed at Kolaroa municipality,” AFM Ehtesamul Haque, additional deputy commissioner of Satkhira, told the Dhaka Tribune yesterday.
“Also, nine patrol teams will be on patrol in Sadar municipality and four others in Kolaroa. The entire security system will be monitored by an assistant police superintendent,” he told the Dhaka Tribune.