‘At least one election commissioner should be from minority communities’

Bangladesh Hindu Bouddha Christian Oikya Parishad today demanded that at least one election commissioner should be from religious and ethnic minority communities.

At a press conference, the organisation's leaders said at least one qualified election commissioner should be appointed from the minorities as about 12 percent of the total voters belong to minority communities.

The parishad, a united platform of minority groups, organised a press conference at Jatiya Press Club today and placed their demand.

"As there was no representative of the community, the previous Election Commissions didn't consider their religious situations," said Rana Dasgupta, general secretary of the organisation.

The EC even failed to consider the religious sentiments when setting the dates and schedules of some elections, Dasgupta said in his written speech.

"For that reason, the country faced some untoward situations earlier," he added.

Dasgupta said they already wrote a letter to the Search Committee to recommend the next election commissioners' names.

President of the organisation, Prof Neem Chandra Bhowmik, and Kajal Devnath, Advocate Subrata Chowdhury and Basudev Dhar who are holding different posts in the organisation were present at the press conference.