Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Kazi Habibul Awal has said the Election Commission is doing its duty and not under any kind of pressure.
He said this on Sunday in reply to a question from journalists at Nirbachan Bhaban after visiting the Zila Parishad election monitoring cell.
Zila Parishad elections will be held on Monday from 9am to 2pm in 57 districts of the country.
The EC will monitor the polls through CCTV cameras, from the monitoring cell at Nirbachan Bhaban.
Earlier, the Election Commission on Wednesday suspended the by-elections to Gainbandha-5 parliamentary seat over widespread allegations of vote rigging and voter intimidation.
The CEC said the practice of using CCTV cameras is very recent. “We can monitor the elections from here. This is a good practice.”
“We don't belong to any party. We want voters to be able to cast their votes. We are using CCTV cameras for ensuring this,” he added.
In response to a question over how the EC will monitor so many centres through CCTV during the national polls, Election Commissioner Alamgir said, “There will be 400,000 polling booths at 40,000 or 42,000 polling stations during the national election. The five election commissioners alone will not monitor the national election; more manpower will be engaged for monitoring.”
Answering another question, the election commissioner said that CCTV cameras will be used in every centre during tomorrow’s Zila Parishad election, as done with Gaibandha-5 by-election.
Voting in the Zila Parishad elections will be held at 925 booths in 462 centres across the country and 60,866 voters will cast their votes.
Bd-pratidin English/Lutful Hoque
