Chief Election Commissioner Kazi Rakibuddin Ahmad yesterday said it was not possible to arrange polls to the bifurcated Dhaka City Corporation in January next year.
“Why should I hold election in January? We will need more time to prepare. We need time to print [updated] electoral rolls and declare the election schedule,” he said at a press conference at the Election Commission, UNB reported.
The CEC came up with the reaction a day after Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, at a cabinet meeting on Monday, reportedly asked the authorities concerned to arrange the overdue elections to the bifurcated DCC this winter.
The cabinet meeting also sent back a proposal that sought extension of the tenure of the Dhaka South City Corporation (DSCC) and Dhaka North City Corporation (DNCC) administrations to one year from six months.
The CEC said he came to know from newspaper reports that the DCC elections would be held in January. “Now the process of updating the voter list is going on. If we want to arrange the election now, we will have to use the old voter list. If so, 500,000 fresh voters will be deprived of voting rights in the election,” he said.
As per the law, the commission is supposed to finalise the updated voter list by January 31 every year.
Kazi Rakibuddin also said the commission had to consider the public examinations – SSC and HSC – as well during the announcement of the election schedule. “We avoid elections during the public examinations,” he said.
However, he said if the demarcation complexity of the city corporations is gone, the commission will initiate the process to arrange the polls soon.
The CEC said it was clear that the Election Commission had long been ready to arrange the DCC polls but could not hold them due to the boundary extension proposals of both the DSCC and DNCC.
EC Secretary Sirazul Islam and Joint Secretary Jesmin Tuli were also present at the press conference.
The city dwellers have not seen a DCC election for more than 12 years as the last polls in the integrated city corporation were held on April 25, 2002. The five-year tenure of the elected DCC body expired on May 14, 2007.
The previous Election Commission, led by ATM Shamsul Huda, could not hold the polls.
On November 29, 2011, the government formed two city corporations DNCC and DSCC in the capital, splitting the integrated DCC.
On April 9, 2012, CEC Rakibuddin announced the election schedules for the city corporations, fixing May 24, 2012 as the date for voting. But a writ petition stalled the election process halfway through. Later, the court quashed the legal bar to the election on May 13 last year.
But fresh complexities arose regarding the demarcation of the DSCC and DNCC as the Local Government Ministry proposed to extend the boundaries of the city corporations.
