Campaign fever to end at midnight

The campaigns of the Dhaka north and south city corporation elections is set to end at midnight as competing candidates get fire their last salvos to win support.

Dhaka has turned into a city of processions but the curtain is set to fall around 12:00am, 32 hours before voting commences on February 1, as per the Representation of the People Order (RPO) 1972.

The mayoral and councillor aspirants from both Awami League and BNP in the two city corporations spent a busy day today to reach out to voters and garner their support in the electoral race.

The mayoral aspirants have also given a number of pledges in their election manifestos, promising to fulfil them if elected.

There are 13 mayoral candidates -– six in the DNCC and seven in the DSCC.

Around 58 lakh people –- 30,35,621 in Dhaka north and 27,67,488 in Dhaka south city corporations-- will exercise their franchise using Electronic Voting Machines.

Earlier in the day, Chief Election Commissioner KM Nurul Huda claimed that a congenial atmosphere was prevailing ahead of the city polls.

In an effort to ensure a peaceful election, the CEC has already asked the law enforcement agencies to be vigilant against unnecessary gatherings outside polling centres.

The Members of Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) will start patrolling in Dhaka from tonight to make sure that the election is held in a peaceful manner.

A total of 75 platoons of BGB will be deployed in both Dhaka north and south city areas to avert any untoward incident, according to Dewan Mohammad Humayun Kabir, deputy commissioner (DC) of Dhaka.

The BGB platoons will be on duty for four days till February 2, Kabir added.

Alongside, around 45 to 47 thousand of forces from different law enforcement agencies including Rapid Action Battalion, Armed Police Battalion, Police and Ansar already started their duties to avert any untoward incident ahead of the election.