City polls by early May

The Election Commission is likely to announce the schedules for Dhaka and Chittagong city corporation polls next week, said EC sources.

“We are preparing to hold the polls in the last week of April or the first week of May. So, the schedule may be declared next week,” said a top EC official, seeking anonymity.

The commission at a meeting with officials of different ministries and law enforcement agencies yesterday discussed some probable voting dates like April 22, 23, 27 or 28, sources present at the meeting said.

Emerging from the meeting, Chief Election Commissioner Kazi Rakibuddin Ahmad told reporters that elections to the DCCs and the CCC would be held before the month of Ramadan and they might declare the polls schedule this month.

As per the lunar calendar, the Ramadan begins after June 17. The education ministry will suggest a suitable voting date when there will be no public examination as the HSC exams will begin on April 1 and continue until June 11.

In the meeting, officials of law enforcement agencies assured the EC that they were confident to keep law and order under control during the polls, meeting sources said.

A top police official in the meeting suggested that elections to Dhaka north and south city corporations are held on two different dates as a large number of law enforcers would be needed to ensure security if the elections were held on the same day.

This might create security problems in other parts of the country as a large number of law enforcers would be brought in to Dhaka from other districts, he viewed.

Rejecting the proposal, the EC said elections to both north and south city corporations would be held on the same day.

In the meeting, law enforcement and intelligence agencies cautioned that BNP-Jamaat men might carry out subversive activities during the polls if they do not participate in the election.

Regarding deployment of armed forces personnel, the CEC told reporters that it would depend on the situation prevailing ahead of the polls.

The last election to the undivided DCC was held on April 2002, and its tenure expired in May 2007.

But the DCC election could not be held in time for various reasons, including the then state of emergency and complexities regarding boundary demarcation.

The LGRD ministry last month had removed the complexity regarding boundary demarcation and requested the EC to take necessary steps for holding the DCC polls.

The last election to the CCC was held in 2010.

Election commissioners, Home Secretary Mozammel Haque Khan, Principal Staff Officer of the Armed Forces Division (AFD) Lt Gen Abu Belal Muhammad Shafiul Huq, Additional Education Secretary Swapan Kumar Sarkar and top law enforcement and intelligence officials attended the meeting.