Cumilla city poll campaign ends Monday amid fear of violence

Electioneering in Cumilla City Corporation poll ends Monday with voters in fear of violence. 

Voting will be held on 15 June at 105 polling centres in 27 wards from 8:00am.

Mock voting through electronic voting machine (EVM) will be held Monday (13 June) in 27 centres to familiarise voters with EVM.    

The city will remain under CCTV surveillance for 48 hours from Monday afternoon till election day.

Voters fear confrontations among supporters of three mayoral candidates – ruling Awami League-nominated Arfanul Haque Rifat, independent candidate Monirul Haq Sakku and independent candidate Nizam Uddin Kaiser.

The city people have not yet experienced any major incidence of violence centring the election except for a few isolated occurrences since the candidates started their campaign after getting the symbols on 27 May. 

Meanwhile, during his campaign, Arfanul termed the former mayor of the city corporation Sakku a corrupt person. He also vowed that he would expose Sakku's corruption if he wins.   

On the other hand, former mayor Monirul Haq Sakku denied the allegations and expressed concern over the information that the Awami candidate will gather outsiders from surrounding areas on the election day in a show of strength. 

This has created fear among the voters and Sakku has submitted four complaints in this regard to the returning officer.

Independent mayoral candidate Nizam Uddin Kaiser said that both Sakku and Rifat have blessings from the same person. So the fate of the Cumilla city dwellers will not change if either of them is elected.

There are five mayoral candidates in the Cumilla city corporation election along with 108 councillor candidates and 38 female councillor candidates for reserved seats.