Syed Ashfaqul Haque

Unlike any polls in the past, eligible city dwellers yesterday were free to exercise their right to vote through machine, for the first time, at all centres across Dhaka.

February 1, 2020 should have gone down in the history of this democracy-craving nation as a very special day, the day when about 55 lakh voters were supposed to elect their mayors for two city corporations. This digitisation could have laid to rest all the ghosts in the electoral system. The long culture of ballot-stuffing, fake-voting or wrong-counting would have come to an end, for good. And the Election Commission would have become the toast of Bangladesh.

So, how did the day go for real?

Machine proved to be vulnerable, digital ghosts emerged and the EC ended up as the biggest loser.

The wintry morning set a perfect stage for fair polls. The climate was also very

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