The much-talked about election of the Bangladesh Cricket Board will be held on October 10, the National Sports Council announced on Thursday, putting to an end the long speculation.
The announcement of election schedule came within hours after the BCB said it has prepared a draft list of councillors and approved it in its ad hoc committee meeting.‘We received the names of 172 councillors from different organisations and individuals within out September 24 deadline,’ said BCB’s acting chief executive officer Nizamuddin Chowdhury at a press conference.
‘From category one, out of 71 councillors, we received the names of 70. There was no name from Meherpur district. From category two, we received all 58 councillors’ names and from category three, which includes the players and different educational institutions, we received 44 names out of 55.
‘Only Barisal Education Board did not send any name. We are now sending this list to the NSC for the next course of action,’ said the acting BCB chief executive officer.
The BCB official said they accepted only those names which were sent in a prescribed form given to the affiliated bodies. Many clubs and organisations said that they did not receive any form at all and alleged that their councillorship form was hijacked by someone else.
The acting BCB CEO bypassed the questions regarding the countless allegations they received and reiterated that they have no option to consider any name that did not come in a specific form.
‘We sent the forms through courier service or peon or messenger and as far as I know they have delivered the forms to the relevant persons,’ he said.
It has been alleged that some BCB ad hoc committee members have happily discharged the job of a messenger and personally distributed the forms to the people of their choice.
AZM Nasir, a Chittagong-based organiser and a member of the BCB’s ad hoc committee, earlier this week admitted that he had received 10 forms meant for different districts of his division.
Acting BCB CEO Nizamuddin said they are considering all councillorships legal as they came in prescribed form.
According to the tight election schedule, announced by chief election commissioner Abdur Rahman, the draft voter or councillor list will be published today and a hearing on any objection will be held on September 29 before publishing the final voter list next day.
The nomination papers for 23 posts of directors in three categories will be distributed on October 1 and the last date for submission of nomination is October 3. The nomination papers will be scrutinised on October 5 and a hearing on any objection will be conducted the next day.
The final list of candidates will be published on October 7 and they will get just 72 hours for campaigning before the October 10 election.
No official was ready to speak on record about such tight schedule, but said they were asked to complete the election before the Eid-ul Azha, which will be celebrated in mid-October, in light of the country’s current political scenario.
The election date coincides with Bangladesh’s first Test against New Zealand, which will be held in Chittagong from October 9 to13.
Fearing a chaos, the cricket administration wanted to avoid the election during the second Test in Dhaka, which will be played from October 21 to 25.
-With New Age input
