The curtain fell on the electioneering of the second polls to Rangpur City Corporation on Tuesday midnight, 32 hours before the start of balloting, reports UNB.
All types of rallies, processions and showdowns will remain prohibited in the election areas from Tuesday midnight as the polling begins at 8:00 am on Thursday.
Seven candidates are there in the election race for the mayoral post while 211 candidates for ward councillors and 65 women candidates for reserved councillors, said SM Asaduzzaman, director (PR) at the Election Commission Secretariat.
About the mayoral post, local people said there will be a triangular fight among Sarfuddin Ahmed of Awami League, Md Mostafizur Rahman of Jatiya Party and Kawsar Jahan Babla of BNP.
This time the election is going to be held with the polls symbols of political parties unlike its maiden election held on December 20, 2012, when pro-Awami League Sarfuddin Ahmed (Jhantu) was elected mayor defeating his nearest rival Mostafizur Rahman.
Sarfuddin bagged 106,255 votes while Mostafiz polled 77,835 and Jatiya Party-backed AKM Abdur Rouf Manik got 37,208 votes and BNP-backed Kawsar Jahan bagged only 21,235 votes.
Jatiya Party's expelled leader Hossain Makbul Shahriar, who is the nephew of HM Ershad, is contesting the election as an independent mayoral candidate as the party nominated Mostafiz to contest the polls.
A total of 3,93,994 voters -- 1,96,356 men and 1,97,638 women -- are expected to exercise their franchise to elect a mayor, 33 ward councillors and 11 councillors to the reserved seats of women in the election.
The voting will take place at 193 polling centers and 128 of which are said to be vulnerable, or at risk of seeing violence across the Rangpur city on December 21.
Just one polling station -- the Begum Rokeya Government College at ward 25 -- will see the use of newly designed electronic voting machines.
