EC to seek help from govt officials
Staff Correspondent
The Election Commission (EC) is planning to dive with full force into the task of updating the voter list since a lot of time has already been wasted in dealing with the controversies surrounding its methods of preparing the list.To implement the latest method of updating the voter list by going from door to door, which will begin after July 20, the EC on Sunday decided to hold a high level meeting with the government's field level and central administration seeking their cooperation, sources said. Following the decision, the EC Secretariat yesterday sent letters to eight secretaries, divisional commissioners, deputy commissioners (DC) and field level senior election officials requesting them to attend the meeting on next Thursday. Apart from the field level government officials, the cabinet secretary, secretary to the economic relation division, secretaries to the ministries of home affairs, establishment, information, local government, education, primary and mass education, and senior officials of the government's mass media organisations were requested to attend the meeting. Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) MA Aziz will preside over the meeting, which will be held in the auditorium of National Economic Council. The CEC is expected to seek cooperation from the field level administration that has already been engaged with the voter listing process, sources said. Officials at the EC Secretariat said they had never held such a high level meeting for preparation of a voter list. "We have a little time left to accomplish the task ahead of the next parliamentary election. So, we need full cooperation from the government administration to complete the task within the remaining time," a senior official of the EC Secretariat told The Daily Star yesterday on condition of anonymity. The EC started preparing the voter list in August last year, but it could not complete the task yet. The fresh voter list, which had been being prepared ignoring the January 4 High Court directives, was declared illegal by the Supreme Court on May 23. The EC then started revising the existing voter list from July 1 ostensibly following the court's verdict, but without door to door visits. The EC however failed to get response from the people and finally on last Friday decided to make door to door visits to get the job done. But it cannot start the visits before July 20 as it will have to recruit assistant officials for the task that will continue until August 10.
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