Dhaka: The officially stipulated campaign period for 721 Union Councils across 101 Upazilas of the country ends at midnight, 32 hours before voting opens on Tuesday.

All types of rallies, processions and showdowns will remain prohibited in the election areas from Sunday midnight to Thursday midnight.

‘The polls campaign is going to end Sunday midnight. No one can carry out any type of campaign after the midnight,’ Election Commissioner Md Shah Nawaz on Sunday told reporters at his Election Commission Secretariat office.

Noting that some stray incidents have taken place in different areas coming to their notice, he said ‘We’ve given directives to police, Rab, BGB and other law enforcement agencies for dealing with violence and anomalies with iron hands.’

In case of negligence of the law enforcers in containing election violence and anomalies, the election commissioner said the responsible persons will face tough action.

According to the media reports, so far 11 people were killed in election violence across the country after the EC on February 11 announced the first phase polls schedule.  

As the election to the lowest tier of the local government body is going to be held along the party lines for the first time in the country, 16 political parties out of 40 registered ones are participating in the first phase polls.

As part of the first phase election, 721 UCs are going to polls on Tuesday, while 11 UCs of Nagarpur of Tangail on Wednesday and two UC of Teknaf of Cox’s Bazar on March 27.

In the first phase elections to 734 UPs, 733 chairman candidates nominated by Awami League while 613 by BNP are in the polls race, according to the statistics provided by the EC on Sunday.

A total of 3034 chairman candidates --1788 from political parties and 1246 independent contestants- are contesting for 734 chairman posts.

But 54 chairman candidates, all from the ruling party, have already been elected unopposed finding no rival against their respective post.

The 54 chairman contenders elected uncontested include 32 in Bagerhat, 10 in Madaripur, 3 in Gopalganj, two each in Bhola and Brahmanbaria, and one each in Khulna, Satkhira, Barisal, Jhalakati and Munshiganj.  

Besides, 25,847 candidates are contesting for member posts in 734 UCs, while 7,575 others for reserved seats which are exclusively for women.

Of them, 179 member candidates and 54 for reserved seats have also been elected uncontested, finding no rivals against their respective post.

Some 1.19 crore people will have the opportunity to exercise their franchise at over 7000 polling stations in the phase.

Five magistrates - four executive magistrates and a judiciary magistrate- remain deployed to punish polling irregularities for four days from Sunday in each of 101 Upazilas.

Alongside the magistrates, three teams of Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) and three teams of Bangladesh Border Guard (BGB) are working as mobile and striking forces in each Upazila to maintain electoral environment for the four days.

Besides, mobile teams comprising of Police, APBn and Ansar remain deployed in each UC as mobile teams.

For each coastal upazila, two teams (two platoons) of Coast Guard remain as mobile force, while one platoon of the agency is being kept as striking force.

Meanwhile, a 19-member security team comprising five policemen, two Battalion Ansar men with arms and 12 embedded Ansar/VDP members will protect each vulnerable polling centre on the balloting day.  

In case of each ‘normal’ polling station, the number of the team members will be 17 due to lower chance of violence, with two less policemen.  

The EC so far announced the election schedule for the first three phases as part of its plan to arrange elections in more than 4200 out of the country’s 4546 UCs in six phases by June Next.