The test was given to 'examine the UEOs merit and qualifications'.

Sources however said the examination of 100 marks, comprising 55 marks on MCQs and 45 on essay type answers, was given as part of the government's move to bring reforms to the electoral system including the Election Commission (EC), and to end the long standing controversy regarding the political appointments.

The two-hour long examination was held in the Institute of Business Administration (IBA) of Dhaka University amid tight security under the supervision of the EC Secretariat. Earlier, the Public Service Commission (PSC) headed by its erstwhile chairman Prof ZN Tahmida Begum gave a 'controversial' examination allegedly to clear the way for making former Jatiyatabadi Chhatra Dal (JCD) leaders UEOs.

Every UEO, who had joined their current posts on September 7, 2005, were checked with metal detectors by security officials at the IBA building before the exam began.

The examination however created panic among the UEOs as they fear they might lose their jobs, which many of them said had been attained through using political identities and by giving handsome amounts of money to senior BNP leaders and officials at Hawa Bhaban during the rule of the immediate past BNP-Jammat-led government.

Talking to The Daily Star after their examination, many of the UEOs reacted sharply about the government's initiative to give the exam, and questioned what would happen to the politically appointed district election officers, assistant secretaries to the Election Commission (EC) Secretariat, and the ones who had been appointed to the administration on political grounds.

The UEOs demanded that all political appointments made by the immediate past four-party alliance government be re-examined like the way they are being examined, if the government really wants to purge the administration of partisan people.

An investigation by The Daily Star in 2005 revealed that 300 former leaders and activists of the then ruling BNP's student wing JCD, and relatives of BNP lawmakers had been recruited as UEOs through the PSC. And out of the 328 posts for UEOs, at least 150 were filled with candidates from a list prepared by the JCD top brass.

Some of the UEOs, who used to be leaders of different JCD hall units of Dhaka University, yesterday told The Daily Star that at least eight former JCD leaders who were appointed as senior assistant secretaries to the EC Secretariat in 2004, still have their jobs.

They are Nababul Islam, Ruhul Amin, Rafiqul Islam Rafiq, Akbar Ali, Mahabubul Alam Raton, Faisal Kader, Kaniz Fatema, and Delwar Hossain. Most of the current senior assistant secretaries used to be JCD leaders of DU, one was a leader at Eden College, and another was a JCD leader of its Bogra district unit.

They also said some 16 JCD leaders were made district election officers through the PSC in 2003 and they had been picked from a list provided to the commission by the JCD high-ups. Former JCD leaders Abul Kalam Azad, Rashedul Hasan, Belayet Hossain, Nazmul, Khorshed Alam, Hasanuzzam, Mohammad Alauddin, Dulal, Kabir, Farid, Gaffar, Younus, Momen and many others are currently working as election officers in different districts. Most of them came from DU, Rajshahi University (RU), Chittagong University (CU), and the Bogra district JCD unit.

"As we had to take the exam to show our merit and competence, the government should also test other electoral officials who had been appointed like us between 2003 and 2005," said a UEO preferring not to be named.

"We don't know what is going to happen to us after taking the exam," said another UEO despondently. "If we lose our jobs, what we will do? We have already passed the eligible age for taking another entrance exam for government jobs!" he lamented.