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8 Municipalities

EC asked to stop polls

Govt cites flaws in boundaries

Pankai Karmakar
The LGRD ministry has asked the Election Commission not to hold the overdue elections to eight municipalities, raising questions if the Awami League wants to avoid elections after its shocking defeat in five city polls.
The EC has already announced polls schedules for three of the eight municipalities. According to the July 31 announcement, elections to three municipalities -Nawhata of Rajshahi, Dupchachiya of Bogra and Sripur of Gazipur- are to be held on September 8.
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Sources in the EC secretariat said the commission was now preparing to announce schedules for some other municipal polls.
Elections are overdue in 10 municipalities, including in the three mentioned above, and the EC is legally bound to hold polls to nine of them by September 20.
In July, the LGRD ministry first asked the EC to postpone polls to five of them -- Chandpur, Manikganj, Chuadanga, Shariatpur and Phulbaria (Mymensingh) municipalities.
As the ministry did not ask the commission to postpone polls to Nawhata, Dupchachuya and Sripur municipalities, the EC fixed the election date.
But the ministry wrote to the EC on August 7 and again yesterday, requesting it to suspend the September 8 elections.
Polls are also overdue in Sitakunda (Chittagong) and Gopalganj (Sylhet). But it is now uncertain whether elections can be held there on time following the ministry's latest move, said the EC sources.
The sources added the EC
had decided to hold polls to the two municipalities by September 15, and was planning to announce the schedules soon.
Brig Gen (retd) M Sakhawat Hussain, a former election commissioner, told The Daily Star yesterday that it was a “procedural flaw" on the part of the ministry to request the EC to postpone elections after the announcement of the schedules.
According to Badiul Alam Majumder, secretary of Sujan, a citizen body for good governance, the EC holds local elections after being asked by the LGRD ministry. And after the announcement of the schedule, there should not be any complexities about it.
"The ministry’s move to postpone the polls raised questions in public mind as to whether the government is now afraid of facing polls battle, after the ruling party's defeat in the city polls," he told The Daily Star yesterday.
All the five AL-backed mayoral candidates suffered heavy defeats to BNP-supported contenders in Rajshahi, Khulna, Barisal, Sylhet and Gazipur city
polls in June and July.
The ministry in its letters to the commission said boundaries of the municipalities should be redrawn before holding elections. The ministry has used the same justification for postponing the long overdue polls to the two Dhaka city corporations, said the EC sources.
They added that the EC went ahead with the polls plan as the ministry did not inform the commission about the government plan to redraw the boundaries of these municipalities.
Contacted, LGD Secretary Abu Alam Shaheed Khan said: "We have no political agenda behind postponing the election. We are doing it as the delimitations of boundaries are yet to be completed."
He said delimitation of boundaries was a continuous process. In the wake of rapid urbanisation people of many areas are applying to be included in municipalities or city corporations.
Processing these applications and making a decision in this regard take time, he added.