Expressing frustration over pending Dhaka North and South City Corporation elections, Election Commissioner Md Shah Newaz said yesterday that the commission could not hold the much hyped spilt DCC polls as the local government and rural development ministries did not take the EC order under consideration.
“The polls are not being held as the ministry is not solving the demarcation problem. The commission is prepared to hold the polls,” he told reporters at his office in the capital.
Referring to the violent incidents surrounding the upazila parishad polls, Newaz said the commission has learnt many things from those polls, and blamed the political parties for the violence.
“I hope that there will be no violence in the upcoming upazila polls to be held on May 19,” he added.
The DCC elections were originally scheduled for May 24, 2012, but the High Court issued a three-month stay order because of complexities regarding the voter list and the demarcation of the two city corporations, after a petition was submitted by Manzil Murshid.
However, on May 13, 2013, the HC cleared the way to hold the elections by withdrawing the stay order.
The Dhaka City Corporation was split into two—South and North—on November 30, 2011 through a bill that amended the Local Government Act 2009.
The capital witnessed the city corporation election last in April 2002.
