No irregularities reported in Sylhet, Rajshahi city elections, says EC

There were no complaints of voting machine glitches in the first few hours of the city corporation election, said Election Commissioner Rashida Sultana

The Election Commission said it did not receive any reports of irregularities in the first two hours of voting in the ongoing Rajshahi and Sylhet city elections.

"The monitoring cell did not report any indiscipline or irregularity. We’re keeping in contact with law enforcers in the field and as of now, no irregularity has been reported,” said Election Commissioner Rashida Sultana on Wednesday.

The watchdog is monitoring the elections, which began at 8 am using electronic voting machines, from its Agargaon headquarters through CCTV camera.

Despite rains in some of the poll centres in Sylhet over the last few days, the overall turnout has been quite good so far, said Rashida.

“A small number of voters showed up in the centres [affected by rain] but it was good in other places. Rajshahi had a very big turnout.”

There were no complaints about voting machine glitches in the first few hours either, she said.

“The EVM was causing trouble in only one centre in Rajshahi but it was immediately resolved. I spoke to the returning officer about it and found the voting began on schedule in that centre,” the commissioner said.

Rashida, however, assured that the EC had enough capacity to address any EVM glitches as it had backup machines and a technical team on standby. “If there's a technical problem, we’ll resolve it immediately.”