This has contributed to the already controversial rise in the number of voters on the draft roll and put into question the competence of the Election Commission (EC) for the voter listing job conferred on it by the constitution.

Media reports have revealed that 100 Indian citizens in Kasba upazila of Comilla district and one lakh Rohingya refugees in Cox's Bazar were listed in the draft roll while over 4,000 stranded Pakistanis in Khulna and over 1,500 of them in Bogra were listed.

Over 15,000 people of 17 villages long devoured by the Jamuna also found their way into the draft list.

The number of voters has exceeded even the total population of Bhandaria union under Dhunat upazila of Bogra district. The total population in the area is 18,719 while the draft roll has listed 19,933 voters.

"The next election might face difficulties due to the faulty voter list," former adviser to the caretaker government M Hafizuddin Khan told The Daily Star yesterday about the allegation centring the draft voter list.

The voter list should be updated each year, he said, adding, "The Election Commission will have to face problems if it goes for preparing fresh voter list."

The EC, however, keeps claiming through its media advertising that it is determined to prepare a fair electoral roll although has not initiated any step to date to probe the allegations against it.

Apart from the over inclusions, 500 people in three wards of Khulna City Corporation have not found their names on the draft list despite filling in the voter registration forms, they claimed.

Meanwhile, only four of 500 eligible voters from two villages under Rajbari-2 constituency in Pangsha and Baliakandi upazilas made it to the draft roll that shows no male voter in Charkhapur village under Ratandia union of Pangsha. Only two women were registered as voters from the village.

According to the constitution, a person is eligible as a voter if he is a citizen of Bangladesh, is not less than 18 years of age, does not stand declared by a competent court to be of unsound mind and is or is deemed by law to be a resident of that constituency.