Compared to the largely peaceful first phase of the upazila polls, the second round yesterday saw a marked rise in violence, with reports of clashes, postponement of voting and allegations of ballot box snatching coming in from a number of upazilas.
In Sonaimuri Upazila of Noakhali, an activist of Chhatra Shibir, student front of Jamaat-e-Islami, was killed when law enforcers opened fire during a clash with BNP activists.
There have been also reports about election officials of various ranks and law enforcers getting hurt in violence around the polling centres in some upazilas.
At least 13 BNP-backed chairman candidates from around the country pulled out of the polls raising allegations of irregularity.
In the first phase held earlier this month, three BNP-backed candidates for various posts in an upazila, emerged victorious and accepted the results after having announced boycotting the polls.
Voting has been postponed in at least 151 polling from cetnres around the country including 30 alone from Noakhali sadar because of violence, snatching of ballot papers and allegations of vote rigging.
An Election Commission official said the polling centres in Noakhali will soon see reelection.
According to our local correspondents, BNP-backed candidates have boycotted polls in Barisal Sadar, Shibchar of Madaripur, Borhanuddin and Charfashion of Bhola, Faridganj of Chandpur and Mirpur of Kushtia. The district unit BNP in Cox’s Bazar announced boycotting the polls in Chakaria upazila bringing allegations of irregularity against the leaders and activists of ruling Awami League.
Some of these boycotting candidates have also called hartal in different upazilas of Barisal, Munsiganj, Bhola, Jamalpur, Kustia, Jessore, Cox’s Bazar and Feni districts for three days beginning today.
Our Barisal correspondent reported that local BNP held a press conference in the afternoon alleging that the agents of the candidates it backed had been thrown out of the polling centres and the activists of Awami League openly stamped on ballot papers right in front of the election officials in many centres.
Similar allegations were also raised in Munshiganj Sadar, Cox’s Bazar, Shyamnagar of Satkhira, Gangni of Meherpur, Mirpur of Kushtia and Balaganj of Sylhet.
Incidents of clashes between Awami League and BNP men have been reported from more than a hundred polling centres out of the over 8,000, where voting took place today.
Besides these, our Chittagong correspondent reported that at least four people, including two election officials, were injured in clashes between supporters of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and Jamaat-e-Islami in Lohagara upazila in the district. LDP is led by Col Oli Ahmed, one of the founders BNP who left the party a few years ago and has recently joined the 19-party alliance. He is originally from one of the neighbouring upazilas of Lohagara.
Citing witnesses, our Kushtia correspondent reported that a number of ballot papers with stamp marks on the symbol of the Awami League-backed candidate, were found at the Jagannathpur Primary School centre even before voting started at 8am.
A total of 1,340 candidates are contesting the election for 345 posts in 115 upazilas. Of them, 500 are chairman contenders, 506 vice-chairman and 334 are vice-chairman candidates for reserved women seats.
The number of voters in these seats 19,592,868, comprising 9,805,150 men and 9,787,718 women.