Abdur Rashid Sarkar, who joined the EC Secretariat in last July from the Ministry of Food and Disaster Management, left the EC premises yesterday afternoon and Managing Director of Sadharan Bima Corporation M Humayun Kabir joined as the acting secretary to the EC Secretariat.

Election Commissioner Sohul Hossain, hinting more changes in the EC Secretariat to create a clean image of the EC, yesterday said a joint secretary was assigned to investigate the allegation of financial irregularities in printing the updated voter list.

"Reforms in the Election Commission Secretariat is required to make it clean and hold a free and fair general election," Sohul told reporters at his office.

Sources in the EC Secretariat said more officials would be transferred from the secretariat in a couple of days.

Joint Secretary to the EC Secretariat Azizul Haque is now probing the alleged misappropriation of Tk 3 crore in printing the updated voter list by a section of officials in the EC Secretariat.

During the updating process of the voter list and its printing, allegation of corruption was raised against a number of EC Secretariat officials. Neither the then EC nor the EC Secretariat initiated any move to probe the allegation.

A section of EC Secretariat officials, allegedly taking money, awarded a number of supposedly inefficient companies the task of printing the updated voter list.

Sources said a few officials did not cooperate with the joint secretary by giving him the required documents to probe the allegation. The joint secretary on January 8 in a letter to the chief election commissioner and the EC secretary sought directions from them so that the officials provide him the required documents, they added.

Reconstitution of the EC was one of the major demands of a political alliance which eventually led to their boycott of the polls that was scheduled for January 22. The general election was cancelled amid a grave political crisis.

Justice MA Aziz, who had been on a three-month leave, resigned on January 21 from the post of CEC. The remaining five election commissioners quit on January 31 to pave the way for the reconstitution of the EC.

The present interim government appointed former secretary Dr ATM Shamsul Huda as the new CEC and M Sohul Hossain as an election commissioner on February 4.