Staff Reporter :
Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) KM Nurul Huda explained reasons behind casualties during last two phases of the Union Parishad (UP) polls . The report says that reasons behind most of the deaths were local dominance, family feuds, personal vendettas and political turmoil.
In a press conference titled ‘Report on post polls’ on Monday at Nirbachan Bhavan, CEC KM Nurul Huda said it where EC Mhabub Talukdar was absent.
He said, “We got the root causes of the electoral violence and killings.
These acts of violence are unwanted and not desirable, the election commission said.
“Very few of the incidents of violence cited in media reports took place on the day of voting or at the polling centres. Most of the incidents took place either before the announcement of the election schedule or in the dead of night.”
“Whether or not, these killings were directly associated with electoral violence demanding investigation,” the election commission said.
The first and second phases of the national union parishad polls took place on 21 June and 20 September with voting at 369 and 833 unions respectively. The third and fourth phases of the union parishad polls will take place on 28 November and 23 December at 1007 and 840 unions respectively.
The date for the fifth phase of the union parishad polls to be held at another 1000 unions will be announced soon, said the election commission.
In the second phase of the union prishad polls, voting took place at 8472 polling centers with a total of 41,218 candidates competing for various posts.
Of the 8,472 centrs, voting at 16 polling centers was cancelled due to electoral violence, which was 0.18 percent of all centers where votes were cast.
Candidates from 17 political parties took place in the elections. About 3,310 candidates stood to compete for the post of chairman, 28,747 competed for general member seats, and 9,161 people vied for member posts.
An average of four persons contested for each chairman post and 74.22% of eligible voters cast their vote at the polling centres.
