KHULNA: Printing shops in the Khulna city are up to their ears in work, bringing out posters, leaflets and others polls related materials as the city corporation elections are drawing closer.
Market sources said the owners and employees of the publishing houses in the city are now working round the clock for meeting the demand of their clients since last couple of days after the election symbols of candidates were allotted.
The total number of voters in the Khulna city is 5,35,529 including 2,68, 833 males and 2,66,696 females, according to Election Commission, Khulna. The voters will exercise their right to franchise to elect one mayor, 31 general ward councilors and 10 women councilors from the reserve seats.
A total of 178 aspirants, including 5 mayoral, 134 general ward councillor and 39 female councillor for reserved seats, are vying against the one mayoral post, 31 general ward councillor posts and 10 ward councillor posts reserved for female in the KCC elections scheduled to be held on June 12, sources in the returning office said.
Avijit Paul, an employee of Modhumati Printing Press at Shantidham Mor, told The Daily Sun that he along with his eleven colleagues was working relentlessly to deliver their orders in time.
‘The workers now can hardly manage to take rest. They just doze for a few hours in a corner of the shop,’ Avijit claimed.
Talking to The Daily Sun, Royal Mor’s Sakib Offset Printing Press owner SM Sayeed Hossain said each and every printing and publishing shop in the city got orders, more or less, to print banners, posters and leaflets to be used in electioneering and mini posters or badges for the activists who participate in the campaigns.
The incumbent councillor of KCC Ward 19, Ashfakur Rahman Kakon, also a candidate for the same post in the upcoming election, said he had to get delivery of 5,000 posters from a printing shop in the second phases.
‘The shop owner could not deliver the posters at a time as he had to manage his other clients at the same time,’ he said.
‘Md Al-Amin, owner of Desh Printing Press, said they were facing an extreme pressure of works and it would continue till the first week of running month (June). ‘After then, the business will gradually come down,’ he observed.
Nazrul Islam, owner of Sonar Bangla Press, however, claimed that the pressure on the printing shops would mount further to produce badges containing the election symbols of respective candidates in the next two or three more days before the voting day.
