Election Commissioners -- Sahul Hossain and Brig Gen (retd) M Sakhawat Hossain -- yesterday met Foreign Adviser Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury in the adviser's office at the foreign ministry and sought government's cooperation.

Election Commissioner Sahul Hossain met the foreign adviser last week also and discussed the issue of registering eligible expatriate citizens as voters.

"We requested the foreign adviser to inform the Indian government, during the current visit of the Indian foreign secretary to the country, about our plan to prepare the voter list and the issue of registering the names of eligible citizens who live in the Bangladesh enclaves there," said Election Commissioner M Sakhawat Hossain after their meeting with the foreign adviser.

"The foreign adviser assured us that Bangladesh foreign ministry will inform the visiting Indian foreign secretary about the matter," the election commissioner said.

"Besides, we will hold discussions with Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) and Indian Border Security Force (BSF) since our enumerators will need security when they will go to the enclaves to register eligible Bangladeshi citizens as voters," the election commissioner said.

There are 92 Bangladesh enclaves surrounded by Indian territories with an estimated population of over 3.5 lakh. The EC in 1990 initiated a move to register as voters the eligible residents of those enclaves. The commission also successfully registered some eligible residents of two large enclaves as voters, but it could not complete the task. In 2000, the EC did not make any move to register the Bangladesh enclave dwellers as voters.

"The residents of the enclaves will have citizens' rights when they will be registered as voters," said M Sakhawat Hossain.

The two election commissioners also sought cooperation from the foreign ministry regarding registering non-resident Bangladeshis as voters.

The EC has planned to open cells in some Bangladesh embassies to register non-resident Bangladeshi's as voters.

The EC has estimated that about a crore of Bangladeshi citizens eligible for being registered as voters now live abroad.

The EC has also started working to amend the electoral ordinance and the rules regarding registering voters from among the non-resident Bangladeshis.

On the caretaker government's decision to make the EC Secretariat free from the control of the Prime Minister's Office (PMO), Election Commissioner Sakhawat said the move is historical, which will finally make the EC fully independent for discharging its duties, since no other authority will have control over it.

He said the EC thanked the caretaker government for its Saturday's decision to sever the EC secretariat free from the PMO's control.