Khulna: Voting in the Khulna City Corporation (KCC) election began on Tuesday morning to elect its new mayor and councillors.

The balloting that began at 8:00am will continue till 4:00pm without any break.

Awami League’s Talukder Abdul Khalek casted his vote at the polling centre of Pioneer Girls’ High School around 8:07am.

A total of five mayoral candidates, 148 general councillor and 38 reserved-seat female councillor candidates are there in the election race.

The mayoral contenders are Awami League’s Talukder Abdul Khalek, Nazrul Islam Manju of BNP, Jatiya Party’s Shafiqur Rahman Mushfiq, Islami Andolan Bangladesh’s Maulana Mozammil Haque and CPB’s Mizanur Rahman Babu.

They are contesting the election with their respective party’s symbol, which is the first in the Khulna City Corporation.

The Election Commission has taken additional security measures to avoid any kind of violence with the city going under a security blanket ahead of the much-awaited election.

A total of 493,093 voters—248,986 males and 244,107 females—are expected to exercise their franchise in the election.

Of the total 289 polling stations, 234 have been considered vulnerable.

Some 9,500 policemen, and members of Border Guard Bangladesh, Armed Police Battalion and Ansar remained deployed in the election areas.

Sixteen platoons of BGB consisting of 640 members remained deployed from Sunday afternoon while 31 magistrates remained stationed in as many wards.