Expatriates in UK, KSA to get NID cards before polls: EC
The Election Commission is planning to issue National Identity (NID) cards to Bangladeshi expatriates in the United Kingdom and Saudi Arabia before the next general election.
After a meeting of election commissioners, EC Secretary Jahangir Alam yesterday said the progress of EC's work to provide NID cards to expatriates abroad was discussed in the meeting.
"The foreign ministry requested to start work [providing NID cards] in the UK and Saudi Arabia. The commission hopes that this can be done before the parliamentary elections," Jahangir told reporters after the meeting held at EC office.
The next general election is likely to take place in late December this year or early January next year.
He said that Election Commission would encourage candidates to submit nomination papers online for the next national polls.
It was decided in the meeting to add the matter to the election conducting rule, he said.
A provision in the law allowed a candidate to submit nomination papers online. While the EC encourages candidates to file nomination papers online, it is not yet possible to make it mandatory, Jahangir said.
Meanwhile, during the meeting, the ECs turned down a proposal to form a committee to prepare a draft list of presiding officers, assistant presiding officers, and polling officers.
A meeting source said that EC officials presented a draft policy with provisions for having a committee at the upazila level with the upazila nirbahi officer (UNO) as convener and a committee at the district level with the deputy commissioner as convener that will prepare draft lists of polling officials.
The EC official said that commissioners were against forming a committee, and they opined that the panel of presiding officers, assistant presiding officers, and polling officers would be prepared following the existing rules and regulations.
Now the returning officer prepares the panels of the presiding officer and other election officials. And usually, deputy commissioners of the district and divisional commissioners act as returning officers in national polls.
"At the meeting, there were decisions on the draft list of polling officials, but no decision was taken regarding the matter," said Jahangir.
Comments