The balloting that started at 8:00am will continue till 4:00 pm without any break.
Visiting different polling stations, it was seen that the voter turnout was poor in the morning due to rain since early Thursday.
In the first four hours of voting, election officers, polling agents and law enforcers were seen spending time idly at many centres in Gulshan, Mohakhali, Tejgaon, Mohammadpur and Uttara areas as the presence of voters was very low.
With the passage of time, the presence of voters started growing a bit after 12pm.
Presiding officers at the polling stations said bad weather is the main reason behind thin presence of voters.
“Only 15 votes were cast here as of 10:30pm though there are 3,760 voters at this centre,” Tarek Hossain, presiding officer of Mohammadpur Government College polling stations told reporters.
Mirpur Model Academy Scholl centre presiding officer Golam Mostafa said 158 votes out of 9,163 one were cast at his centre as of 12 noon.
Meanwhile, Chief Election Commissioner KM Nurul Huda said the low voter turnout in the ongoing elections to the two city corporations is not the liability of the Commission.
“It's the responsibility of candidates and political parties to bring voters to polling centres,” he said while talking to reporters after casting his vote at IES School and College Polling Station in the city’s Uttara area.
The CEC said it is the commission’s responsibility to create an election environment, not to bring the voters to polling stations.
Replying to a journalist’s question, the CEC said, “Although the voter turnout remained low in the morning, it'll increase at the end of the day.”
Pointing out to two reasons behind the low turnout, Huda said voters are not interested in voting because some major political parties are not participating in it.
Awami League mayoral candidate Atiqul Islam cast his vote at Nawab Habibullah Model School and College polling centre in city’s Uttara area around 9:20am.
He urged voters to exercise their voting rights braving the bad weather.
“It’s raining today and it’s a holiday as well. It’s a voting day, too. I call upon all to come to polling stations after having kichuiri (mixed rice) and tea to exercise your democratic right,” he said.
The AL mayoral candidate together with his daughter and wife went to the polling station to cast his vote, but the presence of voters was very poor at that time.
Replying to a question, Atiqul said the election would have been more competitive and participatory had BNP joined it.
Singer Shafin Ahmed, Jatiya Party’s mayoral candidate, cast his vote at Manarat International School centre in the city’s Gulshan area around 12:20pm.
“I cast my vote here at Manarat School. Before that, I visited some polling satiations since morning. The election atmosphere at this centre is fine as I haven’t seen any irregularity. But I found some irregularities at other centres where I visited,” he told reporters.
The opposition candidate also said they have collected some evidence of voting irregularities. “Still, I want to see the rest of the time of the voting, and I’ll visit some more polling stations.”
About the low turnout of voters, he said people have lost their interests in voting due to irregularities in the previous elections. “Voters may think their votes have no value and that’s why they are not coming to the polling stations.”
Five candidates are vying for the mayoral post, while 116 contenders for 18 general councillor posts and 45 aspirants for six reserved seats which are exclusively for women. Of them, one general councillor candidate was elected unopposed in the city.
The five mayoral candidates are Awami League’s Atiqul Islam (Boat), Jatiya Party’s Shafin Ahmed (Plough), NPP’s Anisur Rahman (Mango) and PDP’s Shahin Khan (Tiger) and independent runner Abdur Rahim (Table Clock).
The mayoral post fell vacant after former mayor Annisul Huq passed away on November 30, 2017. The last mayoral election held on April 28, 2015 saw a high-octane campaign by both Awami League’s Annisul and BNP’s Tabith Awal unlike this by-election.
A total of 2,345,374 voters are eligible to exercise their franchise this time.
In the DSCC, there are 125 contestants for 18 general councillor posts and 24 women for six reserved seats.