Editorial
Draft voters' list controversy
EC must clear misgivings
Ever since the draft voters' list has been made public by the Election Commission (EC), we have been regularly reporting flaws that existed in it. Not only the list contained names of a large number of extra voters, it included those of stranded Pakistanis (who later protested such inclusion) and of Rohyingas. Also names of people of villages that have long been devoured by the rivers in the area found their way in to the draft list. But, to our utter surprise, despite appeal from all quarters for taking immediate steps to correct the wrong entries and remove other inaccuracies, the EC chose to keep silent and distance itself from the media. Such behaviour of the officials of the EC including the Chief Election Commissioner has only contributed to increasing confusion and mistrust in the minds of the people. Recently it was revealed by Channel-i and later reported in other print media, that as many as 899 false names have been sent by some election officials to the Assistant Registration Officer (ARO) of DCC Ward No 41 Aminul Huq Bhuiyan, who is a teacher of Sher-e-Bangla Nagar Government High School, for inclusion in the list. But on suspicion the ARO refused to include the fake names and for this noncompliance he claimed to have received threatening phone calls from some unknown people. It has been further exposed that the enumerator who had filled the registration forms did not receive the required permission to do the job and on top of that he had submitted false credentials as a teacher of a local school. But, on the other hand, the EC Secretariat claimed to have found the existence of those 899 voters in Ward No. 41 of West Agargaon after an investigation and has asked Aminul to return the registration forms. The number of alleged fake voters in this case may appear to be small but it has to be taken with due seriousness. The issue of restoring faith in the people about the transparency of works of the EC is in question here. And it goes without saying that the EC will not be able to hold a free and fair election with a flawed voter list. Therefore, all efforts must be given by the EC officials to rectify the mistakes and come up with a revised voters' list acceptable to all.
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