The Electi.on Commission is returning the deposit of mayor and councilor hopefuls who took nominations for the Dhaka North and South City Corporation polls.
The commission decided to return the deposits as the elections were not held in the last one-and-a-half years after the polls schedule was announced, EC officials said Thursday.
Returning officers of Dhaka North and South City Corporation informed that the commission had already returned the deposits of many candidates, while EC officials said the commission would return the deposits of mayoral candidates within this month.
The EC collected Tk1.4m as deposits from 14 mayoral candidates and Tk360m from 800 councilor hopefuls, including candidates for reserved councilor seats.
According to the procedure of City Corporation Election, the deposit for mayor candidates is fixed as per the voter count. The EC had fixed deposits for mayoral candidates of Dhaka South City Corporation at Tk50,000 while Tk1,00,000 for Dhaka North City Corporation mayoral candidates.
The commission fixed deposit of Tk10,000 to Tk50,000 for councilors as per the number of voters in 56 wards of Dhaka South City Corporation and 36 wards of Dhaka North City Corporation.
Recently, election commissioner Md Shah Newaz said the EC had decided in principle not to hold polls for the split DCC before the parliamentary elections.
On April 9 last year, the EC announced that the polls would be held on May 24, 2012. However, on April 17 last year, the High Court issued stay order on the polls.
