The Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) was used for the first time at the Dhaka South and Dhaka North elections and though the polls ended on time, publication of result for Dhaka North took 11 hours. Earlier, it was stated that with EVM, the time taken will be far less.

From 8am till 4pm on Saturday (Feb 1), voting took place at 1,318 centres and the counting began after 4pm. The result of nine centres was declared at 5:30pm, the result of 32 centres at 6.30pm and the Election Commission took 11 hours to declare the full result.

Many councillor candidates expressed resentment at the time taken to declare the result. But returning officer of Dhaka North, Abul Kashem could not explain the excess time taken to publish the result.

Reportedly, there were some issues with the tab. Prior to the elections, the EC arranged training for all staff and carried out awareness about EVMs.

However, in reality, the presence of voters was sparse. From the results it appears that at DSCC, the rate of votes was 29.002 percent while for DNCC it was 25.30. In Dhaka North City Corporation (DNCC), AL supported candidate Atiqul Islam was elected with 447,211 votes followed by Tabith Awal of BNP who got 264,161 votes.

As per the Dhaka South City Corporation (DSCC) vote results, published at 11:30pm on Saturday, AL candidate Sheikh Fazle Noor Taposh emerged victorious with 424,595 votes followed by BNP’s Ishraque Hossain who bagged 236,512 votes. Rejecting the result, BNP called for hartal on Sunday (Feb 2).