BNP made mistake by not participating election, Liton says

Election to the Rajshahi City Corporation (RCC) began amid festivity as many of the voters, particularly female, were seen standing in long queues much before starting the poll at 8am today.

For the first time in RCC‍‍`s 36-year history, elections are being held in Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) in all the 155 centres. There are also Closed-circuit television Cameras (CCTV) in each of the centres.

AHM Khairuzzaman Liton, one the three mayor candidates, along with his family members cast his vote at Upashahar Town Satellite High School centre at 9am.

He also talked to journalists there expecting above 60 percent vote cast in the election. He remarked, “BNP has made a mistake by not participating in this election.”

Nur Jahan Begum, one of the voters at Mirzapur Government Primary School Centre, expressed her happiness after casting vote in EVM for the first time in her 65-year life.

Meanwhile, five-tier security measures have been taken for making today‍‍`s RCC polls free, fair, participatory, peaceful and acceptable to all as around 6,000 law enforcers will work to maintain law and order.

Security officials said around 3,514 members of police, 400 personnel of Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), 200 of Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) and 1,860 of Ansar are discharging election duties.

Commissioner of Rajshahi Metropolitan Police Anisur Rahman visited some of the polling centres this morning expressing his satisfaction after witnessing a peaceful election.

RCC started being operating in 90s. RCC has 30 wards. As many as four mayoral candidates are vying for the mayor post. Around 46 candidates are contesting for 10 reserved women councilor posts and 111 candidates for 30 general councilor posts. Total voters in this city are 3,51,982 people. There are 155 polling stations and 1153 polling booths in RCC area.

AS many as 16 BNP members are running for the position of councillor in Rajshahi even though the party did not participate in the election. In addition, nine Jamaat-e-Islami candidates took part in the election.

The mayoral candidates are: Bangladesh Awami League nominated and former mayor AHM Khairuzzaman Liton (Boat), Jatiya Party candidate Saiful Islam Swapan (Plough) and Jaker Party Latif Anwar (Rose).