The ruling Awami League has constituted its election steering committee, headed by party President and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, to speed up preparations for the next parliamentary polls, sources said.
PM’s advisers HT Imam and Mashiur Rahman have been made co-chairmen of the committee.
The formation of the panel came into light when HT Imam was speaking to some leaders at the party chief’s Dhanmondi office on Saturday, the sources said. The full committee would be declared within the next few days.
It is, however, not confirmed how many members would be opted in this panel later on.
Before the 2008 polls, the Awami League formed an 11-strong election steering committee with Hasina at its helm and HT Imam as the co-chairman.
The ruling party has already declared to launch electioneering formally from September 1. The party president would make the announcement from a public rally at Suhrawardy Udyan on August 30.
While talking to the Dhaka Tribune yesterday, AL presidium member Kazi Zafarullah admitted about formation of the committee. He, however, could not name its members.
Besides, the sources said Hasina asked party’s former organising secretary and lawmaker from a Dhaka constituency Saber Hossain Chowdhury to attend the Dhanmondi office regularly as he was assigned to discharge some specific election-related duties.
Talking to the Dhaka Tribune, Saber said: “An election involves many different tasks. I will oversee some of those.”
The Awami League has also decided to train up 600,000 party members as polling agents. Maryland-based Democratic International would conduct the training sessions across the country starting from September, the sources confirmed.