No municipality polls candidate can campaign using symbol before December 14 and mobile courts will function in every municipality around the country from that day to monitor how the campaigns are run.
This decision was made yesterday at a meeting of the Election Commission (EC), with Chief Election Commissioner Kazi Rakibuddin Ahmad in the chair.
EC Secretary Sirajul Islam told reporters after the meeting: “Campaigns have formally begun from today but the candidates can use their symbols in electioneering once they are allotted theirs on December 14.”
“If party-backed candidates use symbols now during campaigns, independent candidates will be affected by the discrimination,” he said.
Sirajul said Awami League- and BNP-backed candidates are more familiar to voters because of their party identity.
“But this does not mean that independent candidates will lag behind because each of them has an identity of his or her own,” he said.
The EC official said some lawmakers had been served show-cause notices for being directly involved in campaigns.
