After three hours of voting, it rained for almost an hour

Voting in the Rajshahi City Corporation polls was going on in a festive atmosphere on Wednesday morning until rainfall started, soaking voters at several polling centres.

After three hours of voting, it started to rain cats and dogs around 11am, which continued till 11:45am.

Voter presence was high at every polling station in Rajshahi before the rain. Despite that, a 60% voter turnout is expected.

There are 351,982 voters to exercise their right of franchise in 1,153 rooms of the 155 polling centres in 30 wards.

A total of 161 candidates are in the election race. Of them, three for mayor, 112 for general councillors in 30 wards and 46 for 10 reserved seats for women councillors.

The mayoral candidates are the Awami League-nominated candidate, former mayor AHM Khairuzzaman Liton (boat), Jatiya Party's Saiful Islam Swapan (plough) and Jaker Party's Latif Anwar (rose).

Around 3,500 members of the police, 400 from the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), 200 from the Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) and 1,860 Ansar members will discharge election duties.