No possibility of polls in near future
There is no possibility of holding the long overdue elections to the bifurcated Dhaka city corporation (DCC) in the near future, said Election Commissioner Abdul Mobarak yesterday.
“We are legally bound to hold the elections. But necessary situation for the elections is absent. We will hold the polls at a suitable time when favourable situation prevails,” he told journalists in the capital's EC Secretariat.
On Tuesday, LGRD & Cooperatives Minister Syed Ashraful Islam told parliament that as per law the EC was responsible for holding the elections.
However, Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Kazi Rakibuddin Ahmad and other commissioners repeatedly stated in the last couple of months that their several attempts to hold the elections bore no fruit over complexities centring around, among others, voter lists and demarcation.
The demarcation, they said, was the ministry's responsibility.
The undivided DCC's tenure expired on May 14, 2007 but the election could not be held due to a state of emergency.
On November 4, 2011, the government split DCC into two, removing mayor Sadeque Hossain Khoka who was elected in April 2002, and appointed administrators to run them.
On the recent upazila parishad elections, Mobark, discharging the CEC's duties as Rakibuddin is abroad, said some irregularities might have been carried out by some polling officials.
Stern punitive measures will be taken against the accused once the charges are proven, he said, adding that the EC would strengthen security measures in the elections' remaining phases.
Out of 487 upazila parishads, elections to 97 were held on February 19 and to one on February 24 in the first phase and to 114 on February 27 and to one on March 1 in the second.
Elections to 83 upazila parishads are scheduled for March 15, 93 on March 23 and 74 on March 31 in the third, fourth and fifth phases respectively.
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