Chief adviser Dr Muhammad Yunus said the interim government is committed to holding the most free, fair and acceptable election in the country's history, reports BSS.
Chief adviser made the remark on Tuesday while addressed the nation this evening to convey greetings on the occasion of the Independence Day and the holy Eid-ul-Fitr.
He said: “We want the next polls to be the most free, fair and acceptable one in the history of Bangladesh."
The Election Commission (EC) has started taking all-out preparations, the chief adviser said and hoped the political parties will begin preparations with great enthusiasm to join the next polls.
In his speech broadcasted live by state-run Bangladesh Television (BTV) and Bangladesh Betar, he reiterated that the polls would be held sometime between December this year and June next year.
Prof Yunus said the National Consensus Commission has already started its work, while letters have been sent to 38 political parties with 166 recommendations and full reports from six reform commissions constituted earlier by the interim government.
Meanwhile, he said, the government has already started talks with the political parties over reforms and the political parties have responded very positively to the reform works and are expressing their opinions.
The political parties are providing their opinions on reform proposals, he said, adding that it is a matter happiness for the nation that each political party is giving its opinion in favor of the reform.
Mentioning that the work of taking opinions from all political parties through the Consensus Commission is now underway, Prof Yunus said the aim of the commission is to identify all the issues on which the political parties would agree and prepare a list of those.
The July Charter will be prepared on the basis of the issues the political parties would agree on, he added.
"Our responsibility is to present the entire process before the nation in a transparent way and organize the elections after completing the process," he said.
At the onset of his speech, the Chief Adviser recalled with deep respect the heroic martyrs of the great Liberation War on the eve of the great Independence Day.
He said the March 25 is a day of massacre that remains stigmatized in the history of human civilization.
"On this night in 1971, the Pakistani occupation forces brutally opened fire on innocent, unarmed and sleeping Bangladesh and killed thousands of people. Since March 25, the people of this country had raised armed resistance. Bangladesh became independent through a nine-month war," he said.
The sacrifices of thousands of martyrs and two lakh oppressed women in the nine-month bloody war gave birth to an independent land called Bangladesh in the world map, Prof Yunus said.
"My salute to these heroes of the liberation war," he added.
Besides, on behalf of the entire nation, he saluted hundreds of martyrs and injured in the July 2024 uprising, and those who stood up against discrimination, exploitation, torture and oppression.
"We want to utilize the opportunity that the July mass uprising has given us aiming to fulfill our dream of building a discrimination-free Bangladesh," the Chief Adviser said.
Bd-Pratidin English/ AM
