Polling going well, no irregularities reported: EC Alamgir

Election Commissioner Md Alamgir expressed satisfaction two and half hours into the Gazipur city polls on Thursday, stressing that no information of irregularities has been reported by far.

While talking to reporters at the election commission building this morning, he assured them that the polling has been going well by far.

"From what we can see in the CCTV camera footage is that the voting is taking place in a disciplined manner. Moreover, the reports we obtained from election observers and law enforcement officials say the vote casting has been fair in the last two and half hours with no bad news reported," he asserted.

When asked about complaints in regards to EVM and CCTV cameras, EC Alamgir argued that EVM being a machine can have malfunctions and it does.

"Immediate steps were taken to fix the motions where glitches were reported. Voters, there were able to cast vote again after a brief pause of 5-10 minutes.

"What happened with the CCTV cameras is that we are not being able to follow live voting in some centres from Dhaka due to lack of internet connection," he explained, noting that the cameras, however, are operational as the video footage are being saved in our hard drives.

He further added that the 10-12 cameras that had issues have now been fixed.

Regarding the news of arrests, he said there has been no such information till now but some arrests may take place in future.

As reporters pointed out that polling agents of mayoral candidate Zayeda Khatun were not found in many centres, the election commissioner said he has not received any complaint in this regard.

"During our meeting with her, she was advised to contact us if faced with any kind of obstacle. We said arrangements will be made to accommodate their agents with the help of police and magistrate."

Refusing to comment on the new US visa policy, MD Alamgir said, "I can't comment on this. It's a bilateral issue. Our responsibility is to conduct a free and fair election. Hence we will do everything to ensure that.".

Earlier, EC Md Alamgir, EC Rasheda Sultana and EC Ahsan Habib started monitoring the polls on CCTV cameras at 8am in the morning from the control room of the Election Commission. Later, EC Anisur Rahman joined them around 9am. CEC came after 9.30am.