Bangladesh News

Elections to Rajshahi, Khulna, Sylhet and Barisal City Corporations will be held at the end of April next instead of March as the SSC examinations across the country have been deferred to March 27 due to the recent cyclone, said Election Commissioner Brig Gen (retd) M Sakhawat Hussain yesterday.

He, however, told journalists that the Election Commission (EC) would request the government, when it deems necessary, to create an appropriate environment (lifting of emergency) for holding the local body elections.

Sakhawat said this when the reporters asked about Adviser Mainul Hosein’s Sunday’s remarks that the caretaker government will discuss lifting of the state of emergency if the EC asks for it.

“We don’t want to call it state of emergency… We’ll request the government, when it deems necessary, to create a suitable atmosphere for facilitating the local body elections,” he said.

About the delay in holding the local body election he said, “We were always determined to hold city corporation elections in March (2008). But due to Sidr, the SSC examinations have been deferred to March 27. So, our schedule has also been delayed naturally,” Sakhawat told the journalists.

He was briefing the newsmen after visiting voter-listing centres at Kakoli High School and Dhanmondi Govt Girls’ High School.

“Election to Dhaka City Corporation (DCC) won’t be possible in April. We’ll hold it separately,” Sakhawat said when asked if the EC would also hold the DCC election in April.

The tenure of DCC expired on May 14 this year, but the field- level task of its voter listing is still going on while the voter listing of RCC, KCC, SCC and BCC is almost at the final stage.

Meanwhile, 1.74 crore voters have been registered across the country as of December 19.