He reiterated that the names of eligible citizens will be put on the voter list even if their photographs are not available instantaneously.

"If photographs of all voters are not on the electoral roll it will not create any problem in holding the next parliamentary election. The process will continue. The voter list will be updated every year," Huda told reporters in his office.

"If one's photograph is not immediately available, that can be added later even after the upcoming election," he asserted.

Election Commissioner Brig Gen (retd) M Sakhawat Hossain however said particulars of those prospective voters, who will not visit the voter registration centres to have their photographs taken, will also be put in the database. "We will decide later whether they will be registered as voters or not," he said.

When his attention was drawn to the CEC's comment on Sunday that the names of eligible citizens will be on the voter list even if their photographs are not available, Sakhawat said, "He [CEC] meant the database."

Contacted by a group of journalists yesterday, the CEC however reiterated that eligible citizens will be registered as voters even if their photographs are not available.

"We don't know how many photographs of eligible citizens we will have for the list. We even don't know what percentage of the eligible people will refrain from submitting their photographs. Everything will start becoming clearer after the field level work begins," the CEC said explaining his position on the issue of voters' photographs on the electoral roll.

Asked whether the circumstances will be more discernible after implementing the pilot project scheduled to start on June 10, the CEC said the pilot project will only give a mere indication. "The system we are trying to develop is evolving now. We will have the actual picture when the field level work will begin in different parts of the country," he said.

The CEC said the EC will launch a massive campaign to motivate eligible citizens to visit the voter registration centres and to have their photographs taken. "We are planning to engage a number of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and private mobile phone service operators to motivate the people across the country," the CEC added.

Asked whether allowing eligible people to have their names registered as voters without submitting their photographs will end up encouraging them not to have their photographs taken, the CEC said it will.

"But to have national identity cards to avail 22 types of government services, one will have to submit his or her photograph," he said.

The CEC also said they dropped the idea of voter ID cards, as it will require at least five years to prepare those.

About 303 controversial upazila election officers he said nine officers were appointed from Gabtoli upazila of Bogra alone. "There were some anomalies in the recruitment," he added. Bogra happened to be a stronghold of the immediate past ruling party BNP when the appointments were made.

Brig Gen (retd) M Sakhawat Hossain said political parties and electoral candidates will not be allowed to have copies of the voter list with photographs, they will be provided with a voter list which will not contain the photographs.

"The voter list with photographs will only be used for official purposes. It will not be given out to political parties and electoral candidates due to the concern for the voters' social and other securities," he said.