Rangpur city polls ends peacefully, vote counting on

Voting in Rangpur City Corporation (RpCC) election has ended without the report of any untoward incident.

The counting of votes is going on as it started shortly after the voting ended at 4:30pm.

Earlier, the voting began at 8:30 am in a festive mood amid a foggy and cooler weather and continued peacefully till 4:30 pm uninterruptedly with spontaneous participation of the voters.

The third Rangpur City Corporation election is held at all 1,349 booths of a total of 229 polling centres using electronic voting machines (EVMs.)

A good number of candidates have run for the mayoral post while 183 people are contesting for councillor posts under 33 wards. Sixty-eight candidates have contested the polls for 11 reserved seats.

“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.

The mayoral candidates are: Amiruzzaman from Islami Andolon Bangladesh, Abu Raihan from Bangladesh Congress, Touhidur Rahman Mandal from Khelafat Majlish, Mostafizur Rahman from Jatiya Party, Shafier Rahman from Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal, Hosne Ara Lutfa Dalia from Awami League, Khorshed Alam from Zaker Party, Mehedi Hasan and Latifur Rahman as independent candidates.

A total of 229 presiding officers, 1,349 assistant presiding officers and 2,698 polling officers have performed their duties on the election day.

According to local observers, the overall turnout might be between 60 and 70 percent on an 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 transgender voter.

The first RpCC election was held on December 21, 2017. The tenure of the vcurrent mayor will end on February 18, 2023.