The Election Commission has yet to get a green signal from the local government ministry for holding elections of the bifurcated Dhaka city corporations.
The city corporation polls have been upheld for a year – even after the clearance of all legal complexities – as the ministry concerned has not completed demarcation of areas under the newly-split city corporations.
“We have asked the local government and rural development ministry (LGRD) to complete the delimitation complexity soon. But the ministry has yet to reply to the commission about the matter,” Election Commissioner Mohammad Abu Hafiz told the Dhaka Tribune yesterday.
Elections of Dhaka north and south city corporations were originally slated for May 24, 2012. But the polls were postponed after the High Court issued a three-month stay order following a petition by a lawyer on demarcating the new city corporation areas, and preparing a voter list. On May 13, 2013, the HC withdrew the stay order, clearing the way for holding the elections.
Hafiz said the EC was prepared to conduct the much-awaited city elections, but could not do so without getting a green signal from the LGRD ministry.
The commission will discuss the matter after Chief Election Commissioner Kazi Rakibuddin Ahmad returns home on Monday from a trip abroad, he added.
Senior assistant secretary Farhad Hossain also said there was no legal bar in holding the city polls, and the commission was only waiting for a request from the LGRD ministry.
About two months ago, the ministry sent a letter to the commission about adding Uttara sectors 1 to 14 under Dhaka North City Corporation, said Farhad, and “the commission then asked the ministry to demarcate the area, but there was no response from it on holding the city polls,” he added.
When asked about the letter, LGRD secretary Manjur Hossain said he did not know anything about it as he was a newcomer in the ministry.
“If any directive comes from the upper level, we will follow it,” he added.
The erstwhile Dhaka City Corporation was split in two on November 30, 2011 by the amendment of the 2009 Local Government Act.
The amended bill showed the door to then mayor Sadek Hossain Khoka and 92 ward councillors. However, they were allowed to stay in office for four years beyond their expired tenures in 2007.
The last elections of the undivided Dhaka City Corporation were held in April 2002, and Khoka, then a minister of the BNP-led government, was elected mayor for five years.
