Contrary to the Election Commission’s claim, the wealth statement of poll candidates could not be accessed on its website. This correspondent tried to open the particular page on the EC’s website, www.ecs.gov.bd, for three hours on Wednesday, but in vain. owever, all other information about the candidates, along with their photographs, was available. On Tuesday evening, an EC press release had claimed that the commission was not retreating from its position to publish the candidates’ statements of wealth submitted to returning officers during filing of their nomination.
“The EC has no intention to hide the information on the wealth (of candidates) or to delete the information from its website. The returning officers and the EC have been publishing such information locally and centrally since 2008,” the release said.
It added that there were some “rules and regulations” regarding publication of the statements of wealth, but these were already in practice. The wealth statements were also published before the 2008 election.
According to sources in the poll panel, the EC had deleted the wealth statement of the candidates from its website following a directive from higher-ups in the government on Monday.
On Sunday, AL presidium member Mohiuddin Khan Alamgir had gone to the EC to request it to remove the wealth statements from its website, the sources added.
“It is a violation of people’s right under the Representation of the People Order (RPO), 1972, enshrined in the Constitution,” Susasoner Janne Nagorik (SUJAN) secretary Badiul Alam Mojumdar told The Independent.
According to the RPO’s Article 12, a candidate must submit his or her wealth statement along with the nomination papers.The Appellate Division in 2008 upheld a High Court order of 2006 for submission of eight pieces of information along with the nomination papers and their publication.
Earlier, media reports had highlighted discrepancies between the wealth of prominent politicians of the ruling party and the statements they had provided to the returning officers prior to the ninth national election in 2008.
Awami League (AL) leaders had termed the media reports as “smear campaign” against the politicians.
-With The Independent input
