CCC polls June 17

Army to be deployed June 14-18: CEC
The Election Commission on Tuesday announced the election schedule for Chittagong City Corporation polls, fixing the polling day on June 17.
‘Election to the CCC will be held on June 17 amid the presence of army,’ said the chief election commissioner, ATM Shamsul Huda, while announcing the election schedule at the commission secretariat.
According to the schedule announced, the last date for filing nominations is May 20, with the deadline for withdrawals set on June 1 and the scrutiny of the nominations to be held on May 22 and 23.
The CCC election is going to be held under some new rules and regulations and for the first time in Bangladesh, the Electronic Voting Machines would be used in this election. The voters of a ward of the CCC would get the opportunity to cast their votes through EVM provided by the BUET.
Against the backdrop of allegation of ousting polling agents, the commission has decided not to entertain any complaints if those are not lodged with the presiding officers or judicial magistrates or any other election officials in writing.
‘The mayoral candidates must be a voter in the corporation areas while the candidates for the post of councillor must be voters from the wards they would contest,’ said the chief election commissioner.
Spelling out a list of do’s and don’ts of the candidates, Shamsul Huda said, ‘Every candidate must submit 7 information, disclose the sources of fund for election expenses, and submit Tax Identification Number (if any).’
‘As there has been a lot of furore over the polling agents, we have decided that the polling agents must submit their complaints in writing to the election officials like presiding officers… No verbal allegations will be entertained,’ he said.
The CEC said the polling agents shall also be from the respective areas where they want to be the agent and the candidates must submit a list of their polling agents with two copies of their photographs before 24 hours of the election day.
This time, the polling agents will have to wear an arm band, so that they can easily be identified, the CEC said.
About law and order in the voting area, the CEC said six companies of army troops would be deployed in the city from June 14 to 18 while two companies of Bangladesh Rifles personnel would be on duty from June 9 to 18.
Checkpoints would be set up before the elections at the entry and exit points of the port city, the CEC said. ‘We have already asked police and Rapid Action Battalion to start recovering illegal arms in the area.’
Besides, a good number of executive magistrates and two judicial magistrates having the authority of holding summery trials would be on duty in the city from June 3 to 18.
Asked why the commission is going to deploy army personnel in CCC polls while it turned down the request for deploying army in the recently-held Bhola-3 by-election, Huda said, ‘Army troops were never deployed in by-elections. There is a legal barrier to deploying army in the national elections whereas there is no such barrier for local government (city corporation) polls.’
‘Army troops will be deployed in a limited scale. We should come out of the existing political culture where the voters often fear to turn up to the polling stations and that is why we need to deploy army,’ Huda observed.
The EC has estimated that it would need about Tk eight crore to hold the CCC polls.
The election to CCC was last held on May 9, 2005 with the tenure of the elected officials to expire on June 25, 2010.
According to the Local Government (City Corporation) Act 2010, election to the CCC must be held before its tenure expires.
CCC has some 1,694,955 voters under its 41 wards, of which 14 are reserved. Of the total voters, 877,790 are male and 817,165 are female voters.
There will be 4,748 polling booths at 674 polling centres around the city.

Courtesy of NewAge