Election Commission (EC) will announce election roadmap for upcoming parliamentary election at their office on 10 am Wednesday.
In this roadmap, the use of EVMs, constituency demarcation, registration of new parties, usage of technology in collecting results, finalizing of the voter list and the specified preparation period will be stated clearly.
In addition, the schedule of the election and subsequent to-dos will also be included here.
In upcoming parliament election, voting through EVM in 150 constituencies will be held and EC is taking preparation in this regard. They are taking a new project of Tk 8,000 Crore for purchasing 200,000 EVMs. The DPP of the project will be presented in EC’s meeting on Tuesday.
15 months’ time is left for upcoming 12th parliament election as EC is working on making plan to hold the election in January, 2024. Hence, the election cadaster might be declared in November 2023.
EC’s additional secretary Ashok Kumar Debnath said EC would discuss about the EVM purchasing-project after details of the project are being presented in the meeting on Tuesday. If the project plan is approved in EC, then it will be sent to Planning Commission. After sending it as DPP and completing related formalities, the second EVM-project will get the necessary approval from governmen in December, we expect.
The EC official informed, according to the proposed project, almost 2 lakh EVMs will be purchased. Besides, its proper maintenance, preservations and necessary manpower to operate it will have to be ensured.
About the roadmap he said, “There’d be no specific roadmap about the usage of EVMs and CC camera; however, the matter of increasing the use of technology, more manpower recruitment and training, increasing awareness will be focused in the meeting. In this roadmap, a few tasks would be given more importance than others.”
Some important tasks in Work-plan: Modification of existing laws, taking advices from all relevant-parties to update election process, new demarcation of constituencies, flawless formation of voter list, setting up voting centers in accordance with the laws, examination of new party registration, capacity extension in holding fair election, use of technology in voting, forming skilled election officers and provide them with training, training of voters, awareness building, registration and renewal of election monitoring agencies are in the work-plan of EC. Besides, priority has given to law reformation, constituency demarcation, party registration, deciding of voting centers and issue of voter list.
In the 11th parliamentary election held in 2018, voting through EVMs has been done in only 6 constituencies. At present, there’re 150,000 EVMs in EC’s possessions by which they can conduct election in 70 to 75 constituencies. However, if they want to conduct election in 150 constituencies as they stated earlier, they have to purchase 200,000 more EVMs.
@The article appeared on print and online versions of The Bangladesh Pratidin on September 13,2022 and has been rewritten in English by Lutful Hoque
