Voting on for Tangail-4 by-polls

Voting is underway to elect MP for the Tangail parliamentary seat, which fell vacant after former Awami League minister Latif Siddique resigned.

The district election office said polls opened at 8am and end at 4pm across the 107 centres in the Tangail-4 constituency.

Officials said turnout was rather low in the morning, but expected it to rise as the day proceeds.

Latif, who belongs to the Tangail's influential Siddique family, had to resign from the House after he was expelled from the party after being sacked from the Cabinet.

His brother Kader Siddique, who leads his own party, attempted to run, but failed as his nomination was cancelled.

Three candidates are vying in the by-polls -- Awami League's Hasan Imam Khan Sohel Hajari, Bangladesh Nationalist Front’s Ataur Rahman Khan and National Peoples’ Party’s Imrul Qayes.

The total number of the voters in the constituency stands at 307,770.

Analysts predict the turnover to be low due to fewer candidates and as there's no one running from a major political party apart from the ruling Awami League.

Voter turnout in last year's by-polls for Mymensingh -1 and Mymensingh-3 stood at 52 and 56 percent respectively.

But the 2015 Magura-1 by-polls saw only 33 percent turnout.

"All necessary measures have been adopted to encourage voters. We have ran public awareness campaigns and hope the turnout to be high," Returning Officer Mahbub Alam Shah told bdnews24.com.

He said each polling station has been allotted 22 law-enforces and that strike forces led-by executive magistrates have been deployed.

Latif Siddique was elected as the lawmaker from the constituency in 2014.

In September next year, he resigned from Parliament after losing his Cabinet berth and the party's membership following anti-Hajj remarks.  

The EC had scheduled Oct 28, 2015 to hold the election, but it was stayed after Latif's brother Kader Siddique moved the court over his nomination.

On Jan 18 this year, the Supreme Court rejected Kader's appeal challenging the High Court verdict, which scrapped his nomination for the by-polls.