Staff Reporter :
The election commission (EC) has finalised a Tk 87.11 billion (Tk 8,711 crore) project proposal to procure 200,000 Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs).
The project proposal was approved at a meeting of the Commission on Monday. The project proposal will now be sent to the Planning Commission for the government’s approval.
Speaking to the media yesterday afternoon after the EC’s meeting, additional secretary of the Election Commission Secretariat Ashok Kumar Debnath said the commission has approved a Tk 87.11 billion project. Around 200,000 EVMs will be purchased under this project. The expenditure will also include funds to create and train a workforce to maintain the EVM.
Amid political debate over the issue, EC has decided to use EVM in a maximum 150 seats in the forthcoming national parliamentary election. They have 150,000 EVM at present. If the elections in the 150 are held in one day, then around another 200,000 EVMs will be required.
Earlier, a senior official of the EC secretariat said the project proposal that has been drawn up has three broad areas of expenditure. These include the procurement of around 200,000 EVMs, measures to maintain the EVM, and creating a workforce for the EVM. In all, the cost of the project has been estimated at over Tk 80 billion.
With a year and a half remaining before the 12th national elections, the EC decided to conduct polls in at least 150 constituencies using EVMs, despite opposition
from the Jatiya Party, the BNP and some others parties.
Election Commissioner Md Alamgir has dismissed allegations of changing the opinion of political parties on electronic voting machines (EVMs) in the Election Commission’s (EC) roadmap, unveiled on Wednesday with the plan to use EVMs in 150 seats of the upcoming national elections.
“We have video records of the talks with political parties. We checked their feedback at least three times. We decided on EVMs based on the political parties’ written statements and video records,” the Election Commissioner said.
According to the EC roadmap, 17 of the 29 political parties which participated in the EC dialogues, were directly in favour of EVM and 12 against it. But a review of the written proposals given by the parties in the EC dialogue shows that 3 out of 17 parties — Bangladesh Islami Front, Bangladesh Khelafat Majlish, Bangladesh Khelafat Andolan — were against EVMs.
On the EC’s decision to use EVMs, Election Commissioner Rashida Sultana said that the main responsibility of the EC is to organise free and fair elections.
“The EC will do the needful to implement this objective,” she said.
Rashida Sultana said that they have tested and reviewed the EVM device in various ways and found that the EVM is a very good machine and it will help in holding a free and fair election.
A group of 39 notable citizens recently urged the Election Commission to backtrack on the decision of using EVMs, in up to 150 parliamentary seats at the forthcoming national election.
The group – comprising of member of Bangladesh’s constitution formulation committee and former minister Barrister Amir-ul Islam, Dhaka University Emeritus Professor Serajul Islam Choudhury, former caretaker government advisors M Hafizuddin Khan and late Akbar Ali Khan and Justice Md Abdul Matin, among others, termed the commission’s move to use EVMs as absurd.
They raised questions about the use of some $450 million in foreign currencies to import the devices in the midst of the ongoing economic crisis.
