Arafat Hasan of DOT
The Election Commission has finalized a total of 40,199 polling centers across the country for the 11th national election scheduled for December 30.Election Commission Deputy Secretary Md Abdul Halim Khan told reporters yesterday that the commission has already started publishing gazettes regarding this.
According to Representation of the People Order (RPO), the Bangladesh election authority has a legal obligation to publish gazettes on the voting centres list at least 25 days before the election, reported Dhaka Tribune.
The report also added that multiple news outlets, quoting intelligence agencies, claimed that 64% of the polling centers across the country are vulnerable to violence, with the highest number of such centers in Dhaka division.
Police have classified 25,827 as being ‘important,’ which, according to police sources, is way of avoiding the term ‘vulnerable,’ which harbors a negative connotation.
During polls, 20 members of the law enforcement agencies and Ansar are usually deployed in each vulnerable center and 15 in each ‘normal’ centre. Around 600,000 law enforcers would be deployed on election duties, according to EC estimates
Some 104.2 million voters will exercise their rights to vote across the country in the 11th national election to be held on December 30. In the last general election, there were 37,707 polling stations against some 91.9 million voters across the country.