Voting in Gazipur City Corporation (GCC) Election is underway with good voter turnout in the first few hours on Thursday.
The voting began at 8 am and will continue till 4 pm without any break.
Long queues of voters were seen in all polling stations. Peaceful casting of votes have been reported.
No untoward incident was reported till the filling of this report around 12:30 pm.
Awami League-backed mayoral candidate Azmat Ullah Khan cast his ballot in the GCC election saying he will accept whatever the result comes.
“I always respect the people’s opinion and whoever gets elected today, I will accept the results,” he said while talking to reporters after casting his vote at Tongi Darus Salam Madrasha Centre around 9 am.
Voters were seen going to the polling stations spontaneously and the long queues of voters suggested a participatory election is being held in Gazipur.
“I am a political worker and my party Bangladesh Awami League is a democratic political party and you (people) have seen that when I went out for campaigning, I was always with the people as a political activist,” he said.
Early voting has been peaceful and the law and order situation is also good, said Zayeda Khatun, an independent mayoral candidate in the Gazipur City Corporation (GCC) elections.
She made the remark while talking to reporters after casting her vote at Kanaia Government Primary School polling station around 10 am.
There has been no complaint so far against the use of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs), she said adding “I am hopeful about my victory in the election.’
She also urged the voters to cast their votes at the respective polling stations.
Eight candidates are contesting for mayoral posts in the election and there are 248 councillors and 79 female councilor candidates.
A total of 11,79,476 voters are eligible to vote and of them, 5,92,762 are men and 5,86,696 are women, and the number of transgender people is 18.
A total of 13,000 law enforcers have been deployed to maintain law and order during the election, said Commissioner of Gazipur Metropolitan Police (GMP) Molla Nazrul Islam on Wednesday.