The Election Commission (EC) is preparing to hold the long overdue election to Dhaka City Corporation (DCC) based on a 15-year old delimitation of its wards, risking a lopsided representation of voters in the next city administration.

Now the numbers of voters in the wards vary between the lowest of 20,000 and the highest of over 1,00,000 according to the 1993 delimitation which is currently in effect, since the 1998 redemarcation was scrapped by the last BNP-Jamaat-led four-party alliance

government in 2001.

Sources in the EC Secretariat said the commission is mulling the holding of the election to the local government of the capital in April or May between the Secondary School Certificate and Higher Secondary Certificate examinations, using the current voter list with photographs, prepared just before the recent parliamentary election.

The EC on January 14 decided to begin countrywide updating of the voter list after May or June, on completion of the due polls to DCC, the municipalities, and the union parishads, the sources said.

The decision means, the EC plans to hold elections to over 4,000 union parishads and over 200 municipalities as well without updating the current electoral roll.

The DCC wards were last redemarcated in 1998 by the erstwhile EC, increasing their number to 100 from 90, bringing an equilibrium among the numbers of voters in the wards, which was also published in an official gazette.

But five cases were filed challenging the redemarcation, following which the last BNP-Jamaat-led government cancelled the redemarcation through a circular on November 25,2001.

The cancellation of the 1998 redemarcation was reportedly ordered in an effort to hold a hurried election to DCC for replacing erstwhile city mayor Mohammad Hanif, who was also the chief of Dhaka city unit Awami League, the archrival of four-party alliance.

The cancellation pushed the erstwhile EC to hold the last DCC election under the 1993 ward delimitation, resulting in a hugely lopsided representation of voters in the city administration.

The local government and rural development (LGRD) ministry at die end of last month sent a letter to the current EC urging it to hold the DCC election again soon, as the poll has been due for the last year and a half. The five-year tenure of the DCC administration expired on May 14,2007.

Although the LGRD ministry requested the commission to hold the DCC election, it however did not take any initiative to redemarcate the city wards.

According to the existing law, the LGRD ministry is now the authority to redemarcate city corpora-

tion wards, but it seems to have no plan for doing that in the capital ahead of the upcoming DCC election.

The current EC on January 14 also decided that the DCC election will be held under the current voter list prepared by the commission during the immediate past caretaker government just ahead of the recent national poll.

The sources said the commission also directed its secretariat to prepare a list of possible polling centres for the DCC election.

Now there are 1 to 20,000 voters in 15 DCC wards, 20,001 to 30,000 voters in 19 wards, 30,001 to 40,000 voters in 22 wards, 40,001 to 50,000 voters in 12 wards, 50,001 to 60,000 voters in nine wards, 60,001’to 70,000 voters in five wards, 70,001 to 80,000 voters in three wards, 80,001 to 90,000 voters in two wards, 90,001 to 1,00,000 voters in two wards, and 1,00,000 to 1,10,000 voters in one DCC ward, the sources added.

A total of 90 councillors will be elected from the same number of wards having equal authority to run their activities, but some of them will represent much smaller numbers of voters of smaller areas than the others.

In the 1998 redemarcation, the number

of voters was around 50,000 in most of the wards with exceptions of just one or two in the old part of the city.

Fifteen union parishads under Tejgaon circle were also brought under DCC through the 1998 redemarcation, as the residents of those unions despite being very close to the city had been being deprived of amenities provided by the city corporation.

But their dawning luck was soon drowned in despair through the 2001 cancella-tion of the 1998 redemarcation.