Counting of votes goes on after voting ends at 156 upazilas

Counting of votes is now going on after the end of voting at 156 upazilas under the 6th phase of Upazila Parishad elections.

The voting was held from 8:00am to 4:00pm on Thursday amid some stray incident across the country. Now vote counting is going on and the results will start coming out by the evening.

The presence of voters was not up to the mark in the second phase of election like the first phase of election.

The Election Commission put the average voter turnout in the four hours of the second phase of the sixth upazila council elections at 16.94%, as people in 156 upazilas cast their votes on Tuesday.

Disclosing the figure, Election Commission Additional Secretary Ashok Kumar Debnath said no “big” untoward incidents had been reported in any upazila yet, before mentioning 18 “minor” incidents.

Officials at the EC said a total of 1,824 candidates contested the polls at 156 upazilas. Of them, 603 candidates contested for the post of chairman, 693 for the post of vice-chairman, and 598 candidates for female vice-chairman.

The EC Secretary Md Jahangir Alam said though no major untoward incident was held, some minor stray incidents took place.

Besides, an Ansar member died of stroke and an elderly man died due to sickness while present in a queue at a polling centre to cast his ballot.