With the election 14 days away, campaigning should be in full swing but the situation in Khulna is different.

The Barishal city is yet to see fully-fledged electioneering by the major political parties although the polls are just two weeks away.

Prisons across the country are crammed with a record number of inmates, in some places three to seven times their capacity, as a result of the crackdown on illegal drugs and a “mass arrest” of BNP men over the last few months.

The BNP has been facing new difficulties since the party candidates submitted their nomination papers for the upcoming polls.

Video footage of Niaz Morshed Elite, son of BNP-nominated candidate Monirul Islam Yousuf for Chattogram-1, went viral on social media as he urged voters not to elect his father.

Around 60 new faces got BNP tickets for the December 30 parliamentary election and most of them are former student leaders and family members of veteran or deceased party leaders.

The Election Commission (EC) hoped that observers from different countries would arrive to oversee polls despite the European Union refraining from sending its observers to monitor the upcoming 11th parliamentary elections for what it says is a lengthy process.

The last date of filing nomination is just four days away, but the Awami League and the BNP could not finalise their candidates for all 300 seats yet because of disagreements over sharing seats among alliance partners.

Jatiya Party Chairman HM Ershad is likely to meet Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, also chief of the ruling Awami League, at the Gono Bhaban today amid disagreement between the two parties over seat-sharing, said JP sources.

More than a dozen nomination seekers were interviewed yesterday by the BNP nomination board for Feni-1 from where party Chairperson Khaleda Zia was seeking to contest the upcoming national election.

The presence of observers in the upcoming election will be thinner compared with that in 2008, as both domestic and international organisations are unwilling to deploy strong workforce mainly due to fund crunch.

The 11th parliamentary election has already seen thousands of nomination-seekers -- from retired public servants, businessmen, actors, singers, cricketers, footballers, labour leaders to bona fide politicians -- lining up to become a lawmaker.

BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia has given the nod to her party's plan to join the upcoming parliamentary polls and enforce a series of agitation programmes in the run-up to the election, party insiders said.

Yesterday's talks between the Jatiya Oikyafront and the Awami League-led 14-party alliance began with Dr Kamal Hossain putting forward the Oikyafront's proposals on the outline of the polls-time government, reconstitution of the Election Commission and creation of a level playing field for all political parties.

Like Khulna division from which it was carved out, Barishal has been a swing division since 2001.

The government should dissolve parliament before the announcement of schedule for the 11th national election to ensure a level playing field, speakers at a roundtable said yesterday.

If the BNP joins the upcoming national polls, it is likely to set aside around 100 out of the 300 parliamentary seats for its alliance partners, party insiders say.

With multiple aspirant candidates already campaigning hard in almost all constituencies, Awami League President Sheikh Hasina last night issued a tough warning to those looking to contest the election as rebels.

With around two months left for the 11th national polls, the ruling Awami League is yet to finalise decisions on many key issues, including whether it will join the election under the 14-party or the grand alliance.

The Bangladesh government has embarked upon an intensive and intrusive surveillance and monitoring of social media ahead of the national election, raising concern over a chilling effect on speech, Human Rights Watch said yesterday.