The Election Commission and other government agencies concerned have completed the last-minute preparations to conduct the 12th parliamentary election on January 7, where 27 registered political parties and independents are participating.
The voting mood is seen everywhere now as the candidates are campaigning door-to-door and pasting posters and banners on the walls. Most of the streets of Dhaka and elsewhere are flooded with posters.
On the other hand, over a dozen parties, including the BNP, have called for a boycott and have been carrying out non-cooperation movements since December 20.
The police have already prepared a list of the “highly risky” and “important” polling stations across the country and chalked out a security plan. Sources at the Police Headquarters said that, out of the 42,149 polling stations, the police have identified 10,000 centres as “important” and 300 centres as “highly risky.”
The “important” centres are considered risky by the stakeholders.
To avert any untoward incident, besides around 175,000 police members, all other forces, including the Army and Navy, Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB), Coast Guard, and Ansar, have already taken their positions in the polling grounds.
The Election Commission issued a notification in the last week of December to ensure additional security at the vulnerable centres.
A security team of 15-17 members will be deployed at each polling station. Among them are police, Ansar, and village police members. Apart from them, members of the BGB, Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), Army, Navy, and Coast Guard will be patrolling the constituencies to assist the civil administration if necessary.
The police have identified 70-80% of the polling stations in the divisional towns as "risky." They are of the opinion that there will be fierce competition between independent candidates and party-nominated aspirants in many seats. This is why the police will be on high alert and may seek the help of the BGB and the armed forces.
Meanwhile, the EC will conduct a meeting of the Central Law and Order Monitoring Cell on Friday, where representatives of the Home Ministry, police, RAB, BGB, Coast Guard, Ansar and VDP, Army, Navy, and Air Force have been asked to be present.
The 66 returning officers and representatives from 10 regional election offices and 64 district election offices have been asked to attend the meeting on the Zoom platform.
Anwar Hossain, DIG (operations) at the Police Headquarters, said that the force would work in coordination with other law enforcement agencies to prevent any kind of violence and to help ensure a fair election.
At least 24,000 police members will be on election duty in the Dhaka metropolitan area. On January 1, DMP Commissioner Habibur Rahman told reporters that there was no threat of sabotage or terrorist attack during the election.
Out of the 2,146 polling stations in the metropolitan area, half of them are considered “important” or “highly risky." However, the DMP chief said that there would be no problem since they have preparations to face them.
