Over 300 foreign observers to monitor B'desh polls

DHAKA, Dec 16 (Reuters) More than 300 foreign observers are set to arrive in Bangladesh to monitor parliamentary elections on January 23, officials said today.

The United Nations will coordinate the poll monitors mainly from the United states and the European Union, which will deploy the largest team of some 200 members.

Immediate past prime minister Begum Khaleda Zia, chief of Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), and former prime minister Sheikh Hasina, head of the Awami League, are the main contenders in the elections.

The run-up to the polls has been marred by violence, and at least 44 people have been killed and hundreds injured since late October.

''The first batch of 10 members of the EU team will arrive in Bangladesh tomorrow, and the others will start arriving in the next month ahead of the elections,'' an official of the delegation of the European Commission in Dhaka, told Reuters.

The United States-based National Democratic Institute for the International Affairs (NDI) said they would deploy some 50 observers for the elections.

The rest are expected to come from several other countries including Canada and Japan.

REUTERS MS VV1617