Meanwhile, the BNP rejected the results and called a daylong hartal today in the capital.

“We are totally rejecting the city elections. A dawn-to-dusk hartal will be observed in the city on Sunday,” BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir said at a press conference at the party’s Nayapaltan central office last night.

Earlier, the party submitted a written complaint to the Election Commission over “irregularities” centring the city elections.

The poor turnout in Dhaka North and South city corporations polls speaks volumes of apathy that has developed among voters regarding the electoral process.

Reports from our correspondents indicate that voters’ presence was thin at most of the polling centres where over 54 lakh voters were supposed to elect the city’s custodians.

And this, according to experts, indicated people’s diminishing confidence in the country’s electoral system.

Many people were deprived of their voting rights in some of the previous elections, they said. Also, the Election Commission failed to create enthusiasm among the voters to go to polling centres.