Petition seeks stay on municipal polls

A Supreme Court lawyer today filed a writ petition with the High Court for staying the December 30 municipality elections.

SM Zulfiqure Ali Junu in his petition also prayed to the HC to halt the allocation of symbols to the candidates of the municipal polls on technical grounds.

Citing from the petition, Zulfiqure’s lawyer AKM Ehanur Rahman told The Daily Star that there are defects in the Schedules 2,3,4 and 5 of the Pourasava Election Rules, 2010 which were amended on November 23 this year.

Due to the defects, many candidates will face problems in choosing symbols for contesting elections, as some numbers, which were mentioned in the schedules, are not in the amended Pourasava Election Rules, he said.

Ehsanur also said the HC may hold hearing on the writ petition tomorrow.         

Earlier on December 10, Zulfiqure had served a legal notice on the Election Commission seeking steps for deploying army to create a level-playing field for the municipality polls.

He sent the notice urging the commission to inform him by 72 hours about the deployment of army personnel and legal action against the ruling party lawmakers for violating electoral code of conduct.

He had said if the EC does not respond to the notice he would file a writ petition with the High Court in this regard.