The Election Commission (EC) has planned to appoint the Returning Officer for the 12th National Assembly elections in early November. After that, the commission will announce the polling date and election schedule in mid-November.
However, the commission can also inform the date of the announcement of the election schedule on the day of the appointment of the returning officer. The vote for the parliamentary elections will be taken in the last week of December or the beginning of January.
EC officials said that there is a by-election for two seats on November 5. After the by-elections, the appointment of Returning Officers is being considered for the National Assembly elections. After that, the Election Commission will announce the polling day date (schedule) after the Returning Officer completes the work of the respective constituencies.
The Returning Officer will publish a public notice of the election schedule fixed by the commission. For this, if the Returning Officer is appointed on November 5-6, the EC will announce the polling date in mid-November.
Meanwhile, the EC has planned to take the votes for the parliamentary elections between the last week of December and the first week of January. For this reason, the commission is sitting in a series of meetings with the schedule from the beginning of November to appoint the returning officer.
The EC has called the top officials of the Ministry of Home Affairs, Army, Police, BGB to a meeting on Sunday to decide the law and order matters of the election; The meeting is scheduled to be held on Monday at 11 o'clock in the election building. After that, on November 1, the EC also called a coordination meeting with various departments and ministries of the government, including Bangladesh Bank.
Apart from this, the second phase training of DC-SPs is scheduled to take place on November 2 and 3. Earlier this date was 28 and 29 October.
EC Secretary Md. Jahangir Alam said that there is a favorable environment for announcing the schedule. According to the provisions of the constitution, the election will be held within 90 days before the expiry of the term. The Election Commission is completing all the activities.
A meeting was held with 9 representatives including the Election Commissioners of India, Maldives, Sri Lanka, Nepal and the Election Monitoring Forum in the Chief Election Commissioner's conference room at Agargaon Election Commission Building at 11:00 am on Sunday. Four Election Commissioners including CEC were present in the meeting. At the end of the meeting, the secretary said these things.
The EC said a delegation including five foreign guests under the banner of Election Monitoring Forum had already sought time from the Commission. Former Chief Election Commissioner of India, one former Election Commissioner of Nepal along with Maldives, two Chief Election Commissioners of Sri Lanka and one Election Commissioner of Nepal were present in the delegation.
The EC Secretary said, how the election system works in their country, how our Election Commission works - this information was basically exchanged in the meeting. They wanted to know about Bangladesh elections through some questions.
(The report was published in Bengali on print and online versions of The Bangladesh Pratidin on October 30 and rewritten in English by Tanvir Raihan)
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