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Govt urges EC to hold DCC polls

Staff Correspondent
The government yesterday finally gave the go-ahead to the Election Commission for holding the long-overdue polls to Dhaka city corporations.
The LGRD ministry sent a letter to the EC requesting measures for holding the polls. A gazette notice was attached to the letter, said EC sources.
The move comes at a time when the BNP-led 20-party alliance have been enforcing countrywide indefinite blockade and recurrent hartals for over one and a half months demanding a midterm polls under a nonpartisan administration.
Elections to the two city corporations could not be held in time due to complexities regarding the demarcation of the boundary of Dhaka South City Corporation (DSCC).
An LGRD ministry gazette on January 28 said the demarcation of the DSCC boundary has been done. The newly demarcated DSCC has 32 more paras and mahallas under Hazaribagh and Kamrangirchar police stations.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in a cabinet meeting yesterday approved a file containing documents on the demarcation of the DSCC.
Hie PM told the meeting that the election to Chittagong City Corporation will be held immediately after the DCC polls, meeting sources said.
Talking to The Daily Star, EC Secretary Sirazul Islam said the Election Commission received the letter from the ministry in the afternoon.
"Now we will prepare for the election. After that, we will send a file to the election commissioners for a final decision on holding the election," he said.
City residents are likely to have their elected representatives after more than three years as bureaucrats have been running the corporations since 2011.
The previous Awami League-led government split the DCC into two -Dhaka south and Dhaka north, and appointed two government officials as the administrators of the corporations for six months. The Dhaka South City Corporation has 36 wards and the DNCChas56.
The last DCC election was held in 2002 when BNP leader Sadeque Hossain Khoka was elected mayor. Though Khoka’s tenure ended in May 2007, he continued in office until the corporation was split.
In the cabinet meeting yesterday, the PM hinted that her party would back Sayeed Khokon, son of late DCC mayor Mohammad Hanif, for mayor of Dhaka South City Corporation.
Food Minister Qumrul Islam drew the PM's attention to forming party committees at city, thana and word levels in the capital. The PM said the committees would be announced once the DCC polls were over.
Also the Awami League president, Hasina in a cabinet meeting last week asked LGRD Minister Syed Ashraftil Islam to take necessary measures to hold the DCC elections.
She told the meeting that her party would back Annisul Huq, former president of Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce and Industry, as a mayor candidate of DNCC.