Polling in the Rangpur City Corporation (RpCC) Elections-2022 ended peacefully on Tuesday afternoon amid a festive mood and tight security blanket.
However, voters inside a number of polling centres cast their votes even after 4:30 pm as they could not cast their votes within the stipulated time due to a huge rush of voters and the comparatively lower speed of some electronic voting machines (EVMs), according to BSS.
Earlier, the voting was started at 8:30 am in a festive mood amid foggy and cooler weather and continued peacefully till 4:30 pm uninterruptedly with spontaneous participation of the voters.
No untoward incident or irregularity was reported from anywhere of all 229 polling centres in the 205 square kilometre RpCC area.
“Voters inside some polling centres cast their votes even after 4:30 pm as the process could not be completed on time in those centres,” Returning Officer (RO) Md. Abdul Baten told reporters.
“Every polling station is covered by CCTV cameras and the RpCC-2022 elections are being monitored from both Dhaka and Rangpur with CCTV cameras. If any problem is noticed, steps will be taken immediately,” the RO said.
Election officials said the counting of votes is progressing at the polling centres in presence of polling agents from contesting candidates for the post of mayor, general councillors and reserved women councillors.
Election officials at District Shilpokola Academy auditorium are collecting results from presiding officers and unofficial results of RpCC polls will be announced in presence of contesting candidates, their representatives and journalists.
A huge number of enthusiastic voters including males, females and youths, were found standing in queues to cast their votes.
In the RpCC Elections-2022, the Election Commission used electronic voting machines (EVMs) at all 1,349 booths of a total of 229 polling centres.
A total of 260 candidates, including nine for mayoral, 183 for 33 general councillors’ and 68 for 11 reserved female councillors’ posts, are contesting in the third RpCC Elections-2022.
As many as 4,276 election officials, including 229 presiding officers, 1,349 assistant presiding officers and 2,698 polling officers are engaged in conducting the RpCC polls.
An adequate number of police, Ansar-VDP, APBN, Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) and Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) have been deployed for holding the polls peacefully amid tight security blankets.
Thirty-three roving teams, 11 striking force teams and six reserved striking force teams comprising Police, APBN and Battalion Ansar and VDP, 17 teams of RAB and 11 more teams of BGB are on duty during the RpCC polls.
Besides, 33 Executive Magistrates were leading 33 mobile courts and 16 Judicial Magistrates leading 16 summary courts to conduct trials for violation of election rules and will continue to work till December 29 next.
According to local observers, the overall turnout might be between 60 and 70 per cent on average in RpCC polls where the total number of voters is 4,26,470 voters, including 2,12,302 males, 2,14,167 females and a voter from transgender community.
