Observing at least 10 polling centres in Rajshahi city corporation election, our correspondent found women voters higher in number than men among the people queuing up to cast their vote.
Masud, a joint convener of the election committee for AH Khairuzzaman Liton, who visited poll centres in 15 wards out of the total 30 also gave an account of witnessing a surge of enthusiastic women voters at the poll centres to our reporter.
According to him, women have become increasingly conscious about their right to vote. Besides that, women issues were given emphasis in the election manifestos of the popular contenders in Rajshahi City Corporation poll.
“Particularly two major mayoral candidates had a large number of women activists in their campaign team who played the vital role to draw such big number of women voters to the centre," he added.
He also reasoned that women usually come in the first hours of voting since they need to go back for household errands early, so the morning sees a greater number of women than men.
Sohel Rana, presiding officer of the poll centre at Satellite High School, said until 11am casting of over 50% of the total votes was already completed of which 70% were women.
Tofazzal Hossain Tapu, polling agent of mayoral candidate Mosaddak Hossain Bulbul, said the centres which were particularly for women saw greater enthusiasm.
Women also showed comfort voting in the EVM system. The presiding officer of a centre at Government Laboratory School Md Abdullah Al Baki informed that more than 62% of vote has been cast until 11am. He said the centre is for women only and EVM was experimentally introduced here.
He further said women expressed more enthusiasm to vote in the EVM system.
Rita Rani Ghosh who voted in the EVM system said she had no problem with the new system. She said though she could not take part in the mock voting trials, she did not encounter any difficulty in casting the vote.
Returning Officer Shuhas Chandra Sarkar said: “As sufficient security was ensured, women could easily come to the vote centres and they felt encouraged to vote.”