Noman Mosharef :
The tenure of the current Commission is going to end in February 2022. Within this time the incumbent commission is determined to hold the remaining UP and postponed parliamentary polls.
EC source said this commission wants to hold Union Parishad (UP), municipalities, City Corporation, Zilla Parishad and constituency’s by-polls, before expiry of their tenure. The EC has sent letter to Ministry of Local Government, Rural Development and Co-operatives to know about Narayangonj City Corporation situation. Besides, EC has given directives to the concern authority to make CD of voter list about those who are eligible to hold polls, source added.
Over the issue, Commissioner Kabita Khanam said EC is always ready to hold election. We are not sloth. We are not indifferent to the national interests.
She said the election schedules have been announced for postponed Sylhet-3 by-polls. EC has plan to hold Cummilla-7 by-polls in September which is recently vacant. We want to complete election during our tenure.
“Every day we see coronavirus infections declining,” she added. If this situation continues, then we have the decision of going for voting for the second phase of UP.
There are also by-elections in some vacant Jatiya Sangsad seats. In other words, the commission has the thought to complete the elections that are supposed to be held in our time, if the Covid-19 infection does not increase.
“We will definitely hold expired elections,” she said. We also want to complete by-elections in vacant constituency. If we have time after the UP election and if the coronavirus infection does not increase, then we will go for the district council election. In the current situation all kinds of activities are going on. So there is no reason to postpone the election on any other ground.
How do you want to do the last election? In response to such a question, she said, in fact, the Election Commission has taken all the necessary steps to hold a fair and credible election. In order to conduct a fair election, there are instructions to those who are involved with the field election in accordance with the electoral law. In that case, our position is still the same from the beginning. Therefore, we want to hold the elections that are ahead as fair and acceptable elections.
