Voting was taking place on Wednesday in 30 municipalities in the three-day staggered polls which last until Thursday, an election Commission spokesman said.

Chief Election Commissioner Mohammad Abu Hena described the polls as `encouraging,' but said polling was cancelled in 18 centres because of sporadic violence.

``All apprehensions have proved baseless with huge turn-out of voters,'' he told the official BSS news agency.

Some 6,000 security personnel have been deployed in Dhaka where schools, most shops and private offices remained closed due to the Opposition strike.The Election commission said some 35,000 personnel, including troops, would guard Nearly 2,100 polling centres in 137 of the 182 municipalities nationwide.

There were more sporadic bomb blasts in Dhaka on the second day of vote, after two mendied on Tuesday from injuries suffered while making home-made bombs.

A third man was killed when a bomb was thrown at a march by supporters of the ruling Awami League, and nationally about 100 people were injured in violence surrounding the strike and election, newspapers reported.

The elections are being held for one of the important tiers of administration and will set the tone for the future political scene.But the leader of the Opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) Khaleda Zia called for Tuesday's polls to be cancelled insisting the results would be rejected by the people. The BNP claimed voter turnout was less than 10 percent, but news reports said in some places up to 80 percent of votes were cast.