Schedule likely today
The Election Commission is likely to announce today the schedules for elections to Dhaka and Chittagong city corporations.
The chief election commissioner (CEC) will hold a meeting with the four commissioners and top officials of the commission at the EC Secretariat at 2:30pm to finalise the schedules, EC Secretary Sirazul Islam told The Daily Star last night.
Elections to Dhaka and Chittagong cities are likely to be held on the same day by April 30, said a top EC official, seeking anonymity.
On March 12, CEC Kazi Rakibuddin Ahmad had said the commission would announce election schedules for Dhaka and Chittagong city corporations in the current month with a view to arranging the polls before Ramadan, which begins in June.
However, Inspector General of Police AKM Shahidul Hoque on Monday recommended the elections be held by April 30.
The last election to the undivided DCC was held in April 2002, and tenures of the representatives elected through it expired in May 2007.
But no election could be held after that for various reasons, including the state of emergency between 2007 and 2008, and complicacies regarding demarcation of boundaries of the bifurcated city corporations of Dhaka.
The LGRD ministry last month settled the boundary complications and requested the EC to take necessary steps for holding the polls to the two Dhaka city corporations.
The last election to the Chittagong City Corporation was held in 2010.
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