The Election Commission has announced that 112 Upazilas will hold council elections in the third phase of the polls on May 29.

Applications for the council races must be submitted to the Upazila’s returning officer or online by May 2. The applications will be scrutinised on May 5 and candidates have until May 12 to withdraw.

Candidates will receive their election symbols on May 13. The polls on May 29 will continue uninterrupted from 8am to 4pm.

Candidates will contest for the seats of chairman, general vice chairman and reserved vice chairman seats at the Upazila level. Twenty-one Upazilas will use electronic voting machines, while the rest will use paper ballots.

The EC, led by Chief Election Commissioner Kazi Habibul Awal, finalised the schedule for the third round of the Upazila council elections after a meeting at the agency’s Agargaon offices on Wednesday. Afterwards, EC Secretary Jahangir Alam provided the details to the media.

Bangladesh has 495 Upazilas. This year, 485 of them will go to the polls in four stages. The elections for the remaining Upazilas will be held after their council terms conclude.

The first phase of the 6th Upazila council elections will begin on May 8 with polls in 150 Upazilas, the second phase is on May 21 with polls in 161 Upazilas. The fourth phase of polls is set for Jun 5.

Even though there is a provision to run for chairperson with the party symbol, the ruling Awami League is not nominating anyone or allowing candidates to use the party symbol in Upazila polls. In that case, the party faithful will have to run as independent candidates.

The commission has already eased the procedure for independent candidates as they are no longer required to submit signatures of 250 voters with their nomination papers.

The candidates are also allowed to use colour posters alongside traditional black and white ones.

The commission also extended the time for election campaigns and increased the sum of the security deposit for the chairperson and vice-chairperson nominations.

The security money for a chairman aspirant has been increased to Tk 100,000 from Tk 10,000. The amount has been raised to Tk 75,000 from Tk 5,000 for a vice-chairperson aspirant.

The Upazila council elections were held on a single day in 1990 and 2009 after the local government body was formed in 1985 by the military ruler HM Ershad.

The commission organised the fourth Upazila council elections in six phases in 2014 and the fifth one in five phases in 2019.