Mundane all day

Low overall turnout and a lesser presence of young voters compared to that of the elderly was what The Daily Star observed at two voting centres during the city corporations polls yesterday. 

A polling centre designated for female voters under the jurisdiction of the Dhaka North City Corporation saw as less as 7.18 percent turnout during voting hours.

Of the 1,686 female voters, only 121 exercised their voting rights at Centre-498 in Adarsha High School in Mirpur, which falls under ward-14 of DNCC.

As polling hours began at 8:00am, the first hour only saw three voters. The number of votes cast was 18 at 10:00am, 37 at 11:00am and 54 by noon.

In the next three hours, the number went up to 80, 92 and 100 respectively.

Voting continued till 4:00pm without break.

The Daily Star learnt this unofficial number of turnouts as the newspaper assigned two journalists to observe the atmosphere in the centre round the clock during polling hours.

Similarly, two other journalists were assigned to observe Centre-510 in Sir Salimullah Medical College in Lalbagh, which falls under ward-30 of the Dhaka South City Corporation.

This centre, for both male and female voters, saw a little over 33 percent turnout with 895 out of 2,708 votes cast.

Although votes were cast mostly peacefully without any major incident at the two centres, the overall atmosphere was mundane thanks to slim presence of voters.

There were no queues of voters at all at the centres and those who went to vote did not have to wait for long.

“We expected more voter presence,” said Arifur Rahman, presiding officer at centre-510.

Arifur said the voting was held without any hassles except for one or two minor incidents.

Officials at the centre said finger prints of some five elderlies did not match and they had to find alternatives to ensure that their votes could be cast.

Jasmin Razzak, a voter at Adarsha High School Centre, said although she could cast her vote without hassles, she and one of her companions faced problems outside the centre.

She alleged that while coming to the centre, some youths wearing badges of a ruling party man’s electoral symbol stopped them and checked their handbags, she alleged. 

At Adarsha High School, The Daily Star journalists had planned to observe the atmosphere at Centre-491 (male) on the third floor of a five-storey school building, considering the fact that it was designated for the highest number of voters -- 2,681.

However, on-duty police officials barred them from staying at the corridor, let alone allowing them to enter the polling booths.

At Centre-498, the correspondents did not find any polling agents of the opposition BNP at the five booths.

There, both police personnel and the presiding officer did not allow the correspondents to enter the polling booths.

Officials there also said they found mismatched fingerprints of about five to six elderly women who had to cast their votes through alternative means.

Of the voters who turned up, the number of middle-aged and elderly women were noticeably higher than younger voters.

Of the mayoral aspirants, incumbent DNCC Mayor Atiqul Islam visited the centre around 11:15am.

Presiding Officer Nazir Ahmed said the voting was done peacefully and there was no major incident at the centre.

Voting centres of the councillor aspirants saw some incidents, as ward-14 saw two aspirants belonging to the ruling-party contested each other.

Heated words and slogans and counter-slogans were exchanged between small groups of supporters around 2:15pm.

On-duty law enforcers later dispersed them.

At Centre-510 of the DSCC, son of a ruling party lawmaker contested one of his close relatives as councillor aspirants.

There were about 22 polling agents at eight booths at the centre but none of them were from the opposition BNP, although some youths were seen overly enthusiastic in helping out voters towards the polling booths.

Some even entered the booths and escorted the voters near the secret area where votes were being cast.