At some places employees of those offices, who are not election officials, distributed the forms among those who came to collect them

"No officer has come today. So I am giving out forms if anybody wants them," Moyeedul, an office assistant at Mirpur thana election office at ward no 14 of the capital, told reporters. The ARO did not come to the office till 1:00pm.

The office of ward no 13 in Pirerbag was found closed as the security guard had locked it and left the place.

Similarly, AROs were not found at the offices of ward no 44 in Mohammadpur, ward no 39 in Tejkunipara, ward no 13 in Mirpur, ward no 41 in Agargaon, and at ward no 70 and 72 in Old Dhaka when reporters visited the offices at different times yesterday.

The ward commissioners, whose offices are being used for updating the voter list, expressed their doubts about the success of the Election Commission's (EC) controversial method of updating the voter list ignoring demands of major political parties and legal experts for door to door visits to get the job done.

"It is not possible to update the voter list by following this procedure. I believe the election commission's attempt will turn into a farce again," Abu Bakkar Siddiqui, commissioner of ward no 41, told reporters at his office. "The government should look into the matter whether the election commission is engaged in conspiracy to foil the election," Bakkar, also a local BNP leader, said.

Talking to reporters at his office yesterday another ward commissioner, Kaji Ali Imam, said they launched a huge publicity campaign in the area, but people did not show any interest to get enlisted.

The AROs are not interested to work as they had not been properly paid for the previous preparation of the controversial fresh voter list which was later declared illegal by the Supreme Court, and because of the confusion surrounding the ongoing task, said a number of AROs.

The task of updating the voter list did not pick up speed on the second day although some people collected forms to include their names on the list, but nobody collected forms for deleting from the list the names of fake voters or names of persons who died.

The EC officials in many areas could not even start working due to lack of preparation.

Talking to The Daily Star yesterday, a number of district election officers admitted that they could not start working yesterday due to lack of preparation and because of the opposition's demonstration.

Chairmen and commissioners of municipalities and union parishads expressed their ignorance about the task.

"I don't have any information about the ongoing task. I don't even know whether the election officers start work today or not," Rokeya Begum, ward commissioner of Bogra municipality, told our Bogra correspondent.

Even the forms have not yet reached most of the ward commissioner's and union parishad offices in Bogra, our correspondent reports.

Our Rajshahi correspondent reports that not a single person visited the offices of a total of 35 ward commissioners of Rajshahi City Corporation to collect the forms and none of the AROs was found at the offices.

Most of the rural people in union councils under the district do not even know that the process of updating the voter list has started, said the correspondent.

Our Dinajpur correspondent reports that only two women collected the forms for including their names on the list till yesterday while 134 offices including 15 ward commissioners' offices in 13 upazilas of the district remained open for distributing the forms yesterday.

The ARO of Bochaganj upazila said he waited at his office the whole day but nobody came to collect the forms yesterday, while other election officers said situations in the remaining centres are almost the same.

Our Chittagong office adds that very few people turned up to collect the forms from the offices of ward commissioners of the city corporation. People are not yet informed about the campaign due to lack of publicity.