Iqbal Hossain Tapos, Jatiya Party's mayoral candidate in the Barishal City Corporation (BCC) elections, alleged that ruling party supporters were stopping people from going to polling centres to cast votes.

"I received a call from Ward 22 [and was informed] that ruling party men told voters that they do not need to go to the centre to vote," said Tapos after casting his vote at the Syed Abdul Mannan DDF Alim Madrasha polling centre around 8:30am today.

Tapos said there were problems in the EVM too. "When I came to cast my vote, I had to wait for around 10 minutes for fingerprint identification, but the machine was still not able to trace it.

"Then the presiding officer used his own powers to allow me to cast my vote," he said.

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"We are still hopeful of a fair election but do not know what will happen later," he said.

Regarding the EVM problem, Jashim Uddin, the presiding officer of the centre, told The Daily Star that the machine failed to detect the candidate's fingerprint as the candidate was sweating.

"As we were witnessing a problem, we consulted with the returning officer and allowed the candidate to cast his vote," he added.