Bangladesh holds maiden local body polls

Dhaka: Amid tight security, polling stations across Bangladesh opened on Wednesday morning for the country's first-ever local government body polls on party-line nominations.

The polls are being held in a partisan manner in which political parties have directly nominated candidates to test their popularity in such elections.

Some 20 parties, including ex-prime minister Khaleda Zia's Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), which sat out of the 2014 national polls, have joined the elections, Xinhua reported.

Around 7.1 million voters of 234 municipalities will exercise their franchise to elect around 3,924 public representatives, including 234 mayors from over 12,000 aspirants.

Thousands of polling stations set up in schools and other public buildings opened at 8.00 a.m. and would remain open to voting till 4 p.m.

Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal has vowed to quell electoral violence in the polls.