Dhaka, Jan 7 : Nationwide voting opened on Sunday morning in Bangladesh's general elections to elect 299 members of the Parliament. The voting started at 8:00 a.m. local time at over 42,000 polling centres nationwide and will continue without any break until 4:00 p.m. local time, Xinhua news agency reported. According to the Election Commission, a total of 1,970 candidates are contesting for 299 out of the 300 directly elected parliamentary constituencies. The election to one of the 300 seats will be held later because of the death of an independent candidate. Meanwhile, the candidates include 1,534 from political parties and 436 independents. There are nearly 120 million registered voters in the South Asian country. The counting of votes will be done on the spot soon after the voting is concluded. In order to facilitate the voting process, a public holiday has been declared across the country. In Bangladesh, a party can only form the government if it manages to clinch 151 seats in total. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is seeking a fourth consecutive term in the country of 170 million population. /IANS