82,000 lawmen to be on guard, army kept ready:Daily Sun

The stage is now set for the much-talked-about elections to the three city corporations tomorrow with 82,000 law enforcers being deployed and the army on stand-by position to ensure peaceful and smooth polling. The voters of Dhaka city are going to the polls 13 years after the last election to the then undivided city corporation while the elections in the Chittagong city corporation are being held

in a usual way after five years. The polling will take place between 8:00 am to 4:00 pm without any break. The Election Commission has taken all necessary steps to ensure peaceful and smooth polling in the bifurcated Dhaka North and South and Chittagong city corporations. As many as 82,000 law enforcers comprising police, RAB and BGB will be deployed. Some three battalions of army will be kept ready in the cantonment to go for action if and when asked by the returning officers. There will be 16 magistrates to coordinate with the army. In the three city corporations mobile courts will function under 84 executive magistrates. At the same time, 9 judicial magistrates will be on duty in Dhaka North, 14 in Dhaka South and 10 others in Chittagong. There will be a public holiday tomorrow in Dhaka and Chittagong on the occasion of the elections. Meanwhile, 1,429 polling centres of the total 1982 in two city corporations in Dhaka and 595 of 719 centres of Chittagong have been identified as vulnerable. According to the election rules all kinds of election campaign ended at midnight on Sunday.   In the three city corporations there  are 1180 candidates including 48 for the posts of mayor and 248 for that of reserved councillors and 884 for general councillors. Among them, in Dhaka North there are 16 mayoral candidates, 89 reserved and 281 general ward councillor candidates. In Dhaka South, there are 20 mayoral candidates, 97 reserved and 390 general ward councillor candidates. In Chittagong, the number of mayoral candidates is 12 while that of reserved and general councillors is 62 and 213 respectively. The number of voters is 23,45,374 in Dhaka North City, 18,70,753 in Dhaka South and 18,13,449 in Chittagong city corporations. In the three city corporations, as many as 49,333 officials will be on election duty. They include 2701 presiding officers, 15,544 assistant presiding officers and 31,088 polling officers.    Sources said the mayoral and councillor candidates spent busy time for electioneering on the last day on Sunday. Most of the heavyweight mayor candidates carried out hectic campaign begging votes in the city.  Meanwhile, the Election Commission has completed all necessary preparations to hold free and fair elections.   Election Commissioner Md Shah Nawaz on Sunday said, “We have taken adequate security measures to maintain law and order during the polls. We hope there will be no untoward incident. If any untoward incident occurs, we will call the army to tackle it.” “We are requesting the voters to go to the polling centres without fear,” said the commissioner. About the vehicular movement, he said, “Generally all the motorised vehicles will remain out of the streets except emergency work on the day of election. As it will be holiday, all the offices will remain close in the city corporation areas.” According to EC’s gazette, the city elections will be held on April 28. For this baby taxi, auto-rickshaw, easy bike, jeep, bus, taxi cab, pickup van, truck, microbus, car and tempo will not ply the roads in the three city corporations from 27 April midnight to 28 April midnight. However, the vehicles permitted to perform election-related duties will be allowed to move.