A section of people out to make EC controversial

Some people are out to turn the EC into a controversial institution by making different allegations against it, Election Commissioner Kabita Khanam said yesterday.

"At work, we always maintained transparency, and after becoming commissioners, we are still maintaining transparency," Kabita told reporters at the Election Commission office in the capital's Agargaon.

About two weeks ago, 42 eminent citizens wrote to President Abdul Hamid for a second time, asking for the formation of a Supreme Judicial Council to probe allegations of "serious financial corruption and gross election-related misconduct" against the EC.

The distinguished citizens sought to meet the president to be able to brief him about the allegations in person, jurist Shahdeen Malik said in a statement on January 31 on behalf of the citizens.

Attached with the second letter, sent to the president on January 17, were copies of media reports on irregularities at the EC, the statement mentioned.

A group of lawyers later called for resignation of the election commissioners.

"Since they made the complaints to the president, I have nothing to say about it," Kabita said yesterday.

The commission had trained election officials in the past, and providing officials with training is nothing new.

"No one can say that providing training to election-related officials is illegal," she added.

Regarding the audit objection to the training expenditures, she said an audit objection did not necessarily mean there was corruption.

"Audit objections can be raised against any institution that spends public money. Audits are done to see whether the money allocated was properly spent," she said.

In their second letter, the citizens cited a media report that said the EC officials embezzled at least Tk 11 crore from the training budget.

The report also said that 18 officials, including the chief election commissioner, several commissioners, and top EC officials, took at least Tk 3 crore of the Tk 11 crore.

In their first letter sent to the president on December 14, 2020, the citizens said members of the commission, under the leadership of KM Nurul Huda, indulged in misconduct and irregularities, including that of taking Tk 2 crore for being "special speakers" at training programmes ahead of the 11th national election and the fifth upazila elections.

In response, KM Nurul Huda on December 24 said the allegations were "false and ill-motivated".