B'deshi oppn rejects city polls, calls strike for Sunday

Bangladesh's largest opposition party has called a dawn-to-dusk strike for Sunday in capital Dhaka rejecting the results of two major city polls.

At a press conference in Dhaka hours after the city corporation polls, ex-Prime Minister Khaleda Khaleda Zia's Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir announced the strike Saturday night, Xinhua news agency reported.

In the country's first ever EVM (electronic voting machine)-only elections to Dhaka South City Corporation (DSCC) and Dhaka North City Corporations, Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) KM Nurul Huda said around 30 percent of 5.46 million voters have cast their ballots.

Voting started at the 2,468 polling centers across the capital city at 8 a.m. local time on Saturday and continued through 4 p.m.

Around 1,000 candidates contested in the elections in which Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's Bangladesh Awami League party's arch rival ex-Prime Minister Khaleda Zia's largest BNP fielded their candidates.

Of the aspirants, 13 are mayoral candidates and 980 were vying for ward councillor posts in the elections to the two city corporations.

Official data from the Bangladesh Election Commission showed candidates of the grand alliance government led by Prime Minister Hasina's Awami League party are on course to victory in both the mayoral positions.

BNP leaders Saturday alleged that their polling agents were forced out of hundreds of stations.

Ruling Awami League party leaders, however, ruled out BNP's allegations and claimed that the polls were peaceful.

( With inputs from IANS )