6 Days To Go
Polls fever too intense
Arun Devnath for Star Online
Walk down any road in the capital — quiet or busy — and you can feel the tide of emotions over the year-end elections runs deep.
On a Dhaka morning, dulled by winter, one thing emerges urgent for a nation that is in love with politics: election campaigns.
As time is running out fast for the campaigners, hundreds of thousands of people in different groups find themselves on the campaign trail. They ratchet up house-to-house visits, seeking vote for their candidates.
On Monday morning, a group of campaigners — all in black jackets and other winter clothes — visits houses in Gopibagh, a stronghold of four-party alliance candidate Sadeque Hossain Khoka.
The area like other parts of Old Dhaka is covered in posters hanging from ropes from one side of the road to the other.
If you end up in a restaurant, tired of running errands in bad traffic, you will hear the buzz of election gossips around.
At Hirajheel Restaurant, a popular hangout for stock investors in the financial district of Motijheel, three businessmen launch themselves into a debate over who to vote for. On an emphatic note, one of them says he wants to use a ‘no’ vote, as he seems disheartened by the selection of candidates in his constituency.
Abdul Kalam, a rickshaw-puller who migrated from Patuakhali to Dhaka, says he will have to save up Tk 2,000 for travelling to the south with his family of six, ahead of the December 29 elections. Kalam ponders where he can get the money, as he pedals his rickshaw through the thin smog over Motijheel, past the grey buildings on a grey morning.
What if you don’t get the money?
Kalam says he is sure he will get it and go to the polling booth in the southern district on Election Day. He smiles before he melts back into the traffic.
A waiter, popularly known as Raju among colleagues at Hirajheel Restaurant in Motijheel, says it is his parents who will determine who to vote for. Raju, a first-time voter, is an ardent supporter of BNP.
“So is my family,” he says, with smiles on his face.
Those who are financially better off have seemingly more enthusiasm about the polls that comes after a two-year pause in political activity.
A banker, Samina Rahman, says all voters should go to polling centres. “This is for the sake of democracy,” Rahman says as she unfolds an official file on her desk, tucked away from the glare of waiting customers.
Courtesy: thedailystar.net
