C M Kajawl :
The Election Commission (EC) on Tuesday sent a letter to the Ministry of Public Administration, seeking Executive Magistrates to conduct mobile courts against the violation of code of conduct in the upcoming three city corporation elections in the country.
The EC in its letter said it had observed that some aspirant candidates are violating code of conducts for the elections and it is necessary to appoint magistrates to conduct mobile court to take action against the violators.
According to sources, EC sought six executive magistrates for the elections of Dhaka North City Corporation (DNCC), Dhaka South City Corporation (DSCC) and Chittagong City Corporation (CCC), scheduled to be held on April 28.
Six Executive Magistrates (two for each city corporation) will be needed to conduct mobile courts till the date of withdrawal of nomination papers on April 9. Later, the EC will need 18 executive magistrates – six each for three city corporations – to monitor the formal campaigning of the candidates from April 10.
Besides, the EC has requested the Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs Ministry to appoint 33 executive magistrates for the three city corporation elections from three days before the elections to four days after the polls.
The EC so far issued show cause notices to some aspirants for violating electoral code of conducts, but it is yet to take any action against them.
As per the code of conduct for city corporation elections, no candidate or any person on behalf of the candidate should be able to run election campaign of any sort ahead of the 21 days of the election date.
‘The candidate will be able to run election campaign ahead of the 21 days of the election date. But the contender shall not be able to use candidate’s photo, party symbol and party name. The candidate shall stop campaigning ahead of 32 hours of election day,’ the rules said.
However, many aspirants are violating the rules and involved in campaigning in different forms.
Mihir Sarwar Morshed, Returning Officer of the DSCC, said they had already sent show cause notices to 21 aspirants for the councillor posts.
As per the election schedule, the last date for submitting nominations is March 29. The nominations of candidates will be scrutinised on April 1 and 2, while the last date for the withdrawal of the nominations is April 9.
