Voting begins in 216 UPs of the sixth phase

In the sixth phase of the ongoing Union Parishad (UP) elections, voting has started in 216 UPs in 42 upazilas of 22 districts of the country. Voting will continue uninterrupted from 8 am to 4 pm on Monday (January 31). In the sixth phase, voting is being done through Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) in all UPs.

EC officials said a total of 11,604 candidates for the three posts were contesting in the elections. In this phase, 1,199 candidates are contesting for the post of chairman, 2,559 for the reserved seat and 7,846 for the post of general member. However, at this stage, 144 candidates have been elected unopposed without contesting. Among them, there are 12 candidates for the post of chairman, 32 for the post of reserved women member and 100 for the post of general member.

EC Public Relations Director (Joint Secretary) SM Asaduzzaman said that 41,82,263 voters are getting the opportunity to exercise their voting right in 13,305 polling booths of 2,186 polling stations in this phase. Of these, 21 lakhs 14 thousand 720 are male voters, 20 lakhs 67 thousand 537 are female voters and 6 are transgender voters.

He said that the movement of motorcycles in the constituency will be closed from 12 noon on January 29 to 6 am on February 1 for voting. However, on permission of the Returning Officer restrictions on contesting candidates, their election agents, foreign observers (must have credentials) are relaxed.

It is to be noted that the EC has so far completed the five-stage election. Voting will be held in the sixth phase today and in the seventh phase on February 7 and in the eighth phase on February 10. So far, voting has been completed in 3,773 UPs in five steps. Up to the eighth stage, the schedule has been given in 4,138 UPs. There are a total of 4,574 UPs. It is not possible to hold elections due to lawsuits and boundary issues in 436 UPs.