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AL council now on July 24

Decides party presidium

Staff Correspondent
Ruling Awami League has decided to hold its national council on July 24, a day before the Election Commission sei deadline expires.
The council will be held to ratify provisional changes made to its constitution for registration with the commission before the December 29,2008 elections.
The decision came at an emergency meeting of the ALpresid-ium, the highest policy making body of the party. Earlier, a meeting of the constitution and declaration paper review committee with party president and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in the chair was held in this regard.
"As per the unanimous decision of the Awami League Presidium, the council session of the party will st :rt at 10:00am on July 24 either at Bangabandhu Convention Centre or Bangladesh China Friendship Conference Centre in the capital," AL spokesperson Syed Ashraful Islam told reporters after the meetings.
The presidium meeting decided that the organisational district unit committees would elect councillors for the national council and send their names to the party high command by July 20. A meeting of the AL Central Working Committee will be held on July 22 to approve the provisional changes brought to the party constitution and declaration.
Held at Hasina's political office in Dhanmondi, the presidium meeting also approved amendments the party brought to its constitution ahead of the December 29 parliamentary polls to meet the EC criteria for getting registered with it as per the Representation of the People Order (RPO).
Ashraf, also LGRD and cooperatives minister, said as per the then RPO ordinance, political parties took part in the December 29 elections by bringing provisional changes to their constitutions. The ordinance has been made an act by this parliament.
"As per the act, every political party will have to submit their constitution before the Election Commission within July 25 and to comply with the law. We have decided to hold council on July 24 to get approval of our constitution and on July 25 we will submit it to the Election Commission," he said.
Ashraf said they had earlier decided to seek six more months from the EC to hold the council but the commission said that they do not have the jurisdiction to extend time. "We have passed the act in the parliament and we want to comply with it," he said adding that they too believe that more time is necessary to hold the council but they have
to hold it on July 24 due to legal obligations.
"We decided not to seek time extension again," said Ashraf, son of first president of the country, Syed Nazrul Islam.
About electing councillors, the AL leader said they elect one councillor for every 25,000 people in an organisational district and an additional one would be elected if there were more than 12500 people left over.
Where there are no fully-fledged committees, central leaders would visit those districts and elect councillors, Ashraf said adding that there are 11 organisational districts where a district council had not been held.
Asked whether a new central committee of the party would be formed through the council, he said all options would be kept open and the working committee meeting on July 22 would finalise those.
The meeting also formed council preparation committee with Hasina in the chair and the entire central working committee leaders as members. The preparation committee sits today with Presidium member Syeda Sajeda Chowdhury in the chair.
Sajeda will act as party president until Hasina returns from Egypt on July 17. Hasina is set to leave today at 11:00am.
The meeting also formed two other committees--reception committee headed by Sajeda and council management committee headed by first Joint General Secretary ObaidulQuader.
For the national council, the presidium meeting formed a three-member election commission with senior AL leader MA Mannan of Chittagong.