The Election Commission (EC) came up with a 9.13 crore total voter number in its draft list published Wednesday, but the BBS report shows the number of people aged 18 years and above, the age for a person to be eligible for voting, should stand a maximum of 8.02 crore if no deaths occur during this period and if every eligible person is listed.

The calculation is based on the BBS 2001 census report completed soon after the last voter list was made ahead of the elections. The report showed the number of people in the age bracket of 13 years and above at 8.02 crore. Those who were 13 years in 2001 reach the voter age in 2006 five years down the line.

So, there is no way that the number of voters in 2006 could go above this figure and reach the EC's 9.13 crore. In fact, it should be less than the 8.02 crore number as at least 10 lakh people in the age group died in this five years. Moreover, if the standard calculation that at least 5 per cent voters do not get listed for various reasons is factored in, then another 40 lakh would reduce. This means the actual number of voters should be around 7.5 crore.

Officials of the BBS, the main source of official statistics in Bangladesh, termed the sharp rise in the numbers of voters ''unusual" and too high in comparison to the country's demography. The EC maintained silence about the issue yesterday.

The officials at the EC Secretariat, however, questioned the accuracy of the census report, a charge outright rejected by the BBS officials.

"We stand by our report. We were very careful regarding people's age to maintain accuracy while preparing the census report," Muhammad A Malik, director of census, told The Daily Star yesterday.

Dr AKM Nurun Nabi, professor of population science department at Dhaka University, said they also rely on the BBS statistics.

About the rise in numbers of voters, Nabi said, "The rise seems slightly high compared to the population size. The figure will increase further when those who were not enrolled will be included in the voter list."

About the eligible voters still remaining out of the list, Fair Election Monitoring Alliance (Fema) President Munira Khan yesterday told The Daily Star, "Five to eight per cent people may not have been registered in the draft list for different reasons and everybody considers this reasonable."

Many including officials in the EC Secretariat fear that the number of voters might be increased due to duplication of names and inclusion of fake voters in the list.

But the EC is helpless to prevent inclusion of fake voters in the list as it has no mechanisms to detect them.

"Population aged above 18 usually remains between 45 and 48 per cent," said a senior BBS official describing his experience in the field. He said the percentage may have risen to a maximum of 50 per cent in recent years, which means 50 per cent people are eligible voters.

About the sharp rise in the number of voters in the draft list, Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) MA Aziz and other senior officials at the EC Secretariat remained tightlipped yesterday.

Contacted through his personal secretary (PS) for his comment, Aziz said he would not talk to the press. "The secretary will say what is needed to be said," Assistant Public Relations Officer (PRO) Abdur Rashid, who was assigned by the PS to communicate with the CEC, told journalists quoting Aziz.

When Acting Secretary to the EC Secretariat Mohammad Zakoria was contacted through his personal assistant, he refused to talk. "Sir is very busy with his tasks and cannot talk now," PRO Asaduzzaman Arzu told journalists.

Both BBS and EC Secretariat officials said people tend to suppress information regarding their actual ages while being listed as voters.

"People do not hide any information, particularly about their ages, during census, but they provide false information to the enumerators for being listed as voters," a senior EC Secretariat official said. "We do not have any mechanism to prove people's actual age," he said.

CEC MA Aziz admitted at a luncheon meeting organised by the American Chamber of Commerce in Bangladesh on April 25 that the EC has no mechanism to find out the fake voters.

Zakoria also echoed him on May 2.

The latest census conducted in 2001 by the BBS, a vital wing under the planning ministry, shows 8,02,72,380 people in the age group of 18 years and above.

The EC on Wednesday published the draft voter list, with a total of 9,13,14,592 voters.

The census report in 2001 pointed out that of the 13 crore adjusted population, 6,80,80,940 people were 18 and above. But the voter list prepared in 2000 had witnessed 7.48 crore voters that triggered a controversy of having a significant number of ghost voters in it.

The European Union (EU) in a letter to the then CEC MA Syed noted that the voter list included a staggering 1.3 crore ghost voters.

Expressing its concerns, the EU in September 2003 said the number of 7.48 crore voters is too high in a population of 13 crore. It argued that 55 per cent of Bangladeshis are aged over 15 years. So, even if the age to be eligible as a voter is reduced to 15 years, the maximum number of voters cannot be more than 7.15 crore.

Rationalising his move for preparing a fresh voter list, CEC MA Aziz said on several occasions that the current electoral list is flawed and he cited the EU letter for substantiating his claim.

Aziz also quoted this year's US State Department report to point at the existence of 8 per cent fake voters on the 2000 list. He claimed the EC is preparing the fresh voter list with a view to ending the "epidemic of false voters".

The sharp rise in the number of voters on the draft of the fresh voter roll, however, does not conform to his claim.

Meanwhile, the officials of the EC Secretariat could not specify the number of voters according to sex. They said they need three or four more days for the task.