Election fever has peaked in Barishal city as the time for collection and submission of nomination papers draws to a close.

Today is the last date for submitting nomination papers for the upcoming civic poll to the Barishal City Corporation (BCC).

Till the time of filing this report, five party-nominated candidates—one each from the AL, BNP, JaPa, IAB and CPB—and three independent candidates are vying for the mayoral post.  Besides, 134 candidates are contesting for 30 general ward councillor posts and 40 candidates for 10 ward councillor posts reserved for women.

All these candidates have collected their nomination forms from the Election Commission (EC). Two mayor candidates, Dr Monisha Chakrabarti of the Bangladesher Somajtantrik Dal and Md Iqbal Hosen Tapos of the Jatiya Party, have already submitted their nomination papers to the EC. The aspirants for the councillor posts have also submitted their nomination papers to the EC.

The AL and BNP candidates for the mayoral post are scheduled to submit their papers today.

This has been confirmed by district election officer Helal Uddin.

The number of voters in the BCC area is 242,166. Of them, 121,432 are men and 120,730 women, according to EC sources.

Golam Abbas Chowdhury Dulal, president of the city AL, said that Serniabat Sadek Abdullah, who is the joint secretary of the city AL, was the AL-nominated candidate for the mayoral post in the BCC election. Sadek Abdullah is also the son of Abul Hasnat Abdullah, the local lawmaker.

The BNP has nominated its city unit president advocate Mojibor Rahman Sarwar as the party's mayoral candidate for the Barishal civic poll.

However, Bilkis Jahan Shirin, central organising secretary of the BNP, too has collected the nomination form from the EC to contest the election.