CEC MA Aziz made move to resolve the discord since August. Besides, two writ petitions challenging his unilateral decision on voter list are pending with the High Court.

The Election Commission (EC) Secretariat will complete the preparatory work including training a 3 lakh strong manpower by this week. The enumeration will be kicked off on January 1 across the country with an aim to publish the final voter list on June 1.

However, if the voter list preparation activities face any legal complexities, it might be difficult for the EC to enumerate all voters in time, as it has only 10 months before the next general elections.

The previous voter lists were prepared about one year before the general elections took place. The last voter list was published in October 2000 and the election was held on October 1, 2001.

For the seventh parliamentary election on June 12, 1996, the voter list was published in October 1995.

Compared with the previous timetables, the EC has a very short time as the tenure of the government expires on October 27 next year and the election will be held within the next 90 days.

However, officials at the EC Secretariat said if the preparation of the voter list faces legal complexities, the election will not be held in time. "The High Court will decide the matter," said a senior official.

The CEC on August 6 decided unilaterally to prepare a fresh voter roll, ignoring the opinions of the other election commissioners.

Since then, CEC Aziz has not convened a meeting of the EC.

He sometimes forwarded files to the election commissioners, seeking their opinions on different matters pertaining to preparation of a fresh roll. In reply, the two gave note of dissent in each of those files, sources said.

Bypassing the objections from the two election commissioners, the EC Secretariat on orders of the CEC has appointed 83 registration officers, 6,270 assistant registration officers, 55,684 supervisors and 216,722 enumerators.

The EC Secretariat on December 6 under the directives of the CEC declared a timetable, which the election commissioners termed unlawful.

"The EC has decided not to prepare the new voter list but to revise the existing list. The orders for recruitment of assistant registration officers have been passed ignoring the law," an official quoted the opinion of Election Commissioner AK Mohammad Ali forwarded in the recruitment file.

"All necessary appointments may be made for revising the existing voter list," the election commissioner suggested in the file that was sent to him on October 12.

Meanwhile, Awami League General Secretary Abdul Jalil and two party lawmakers Rahmat Ali and Asaduzzaman Noor on December 12 filed two writ petitions with the HC. The petitions challenged the CEC's unilateral decisions of preparing the voter list and recruitment of manpower.

After hearing both sides, the Division bench of Justice MA Matin and Justice M Rezaul Haque on December 15 re-fixed the hearing date on January 2.

According to the schedule declared yesterday, the process of collecting information and scrutiny will end by January 31 and a draft voter list will be published on February 28.

The enumerators will start door-to-door visit for information about the people eligible to be a voter on January 1 and the supervisors will start checking their information on January 8.

The assistant registration officers will begin re-checking the information on January 22.

Any complaint about the draft voter list will have to be submitted by March 16 and the revising authorities will resolve the complaints by April 1.