The ear-splitting noise of election campaigning can now be heard in every part of Dhaka. Songs about almost every candidate are played, and every few minutes voters are asked to give the candidate a chance to serve them.

Candidates are competing over who is more deserving than the rest. In breach of the code of conduct, processions after 8pm are campaigning through neighbourhoods with motorcycle horns blaring together, slogans shouted over loudspeakers and songs played loudly.

Dhaka is covered in posters wrapped in plastic. These posters fall everywhere and pollute the environment, and campaign workers are also leaving litter in the streets.

Many people are asking whether they want a representative who is careless during the campaign to look after their city. How much are the candidates who promise a beautiful city thinking about the pollution from thousands of plastic-coated posters or night-time loudspeakers?

The Awami League-backed candidate and current mayor of Dhaka North, Atiqul Islam, said: "We do not campaign after eight. When crowds of people surge, no one can say whether it is eight, ten or twenty-four hours. I cannot hold back a surge of people."

On posters laminated in plastic, he claimed: "Everyone is putting them up as they like. I, for example, printed mine without lamination. No one can tell who is putting them up from where." But Mr Islam's plastic-wrapped posters are hanging throughout his constituency.

The BNP-backed candidate in Dhaka North, Tabith Awal, also said: "As far as I know, my posters are not supposed to be in plastic. We know that plastic waste and plastic pollution are a big problem not only for Bangladesh but for much of the world. I have consciously told my workers not to use any poly."

He said that whatever the election result, he would himself remove all candidates' laminated posters and arrange for them to be recycled. He also said that, for safety reasons, his supporters stop campaigning after 6pm.

Source: BBC Bangla. First published in Bengali on The Agro News.