EC wants list of ‘risky’ polling centres

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The Election Commission (EC) yesterday asked the police headquarters and Directorate General of Forces Intelligence (DGFI) for the lists of polling stations they identified as vulnerable on security grounds before the cancelled general election last year.

“We are collecting lists of vulnerable polling stations from different security agencies to look at the reasons behind classifying those as vulnerable,” Election Commissioner Brig Gen (retd) M Sakhawat Hussain told The Daily Star.

Besides, the commission is thinking of preparing an atlas of polling places so that those can be kept under watch easily during election time, he added.

The lists are needed to set up polling centres for the long stalled ninth parliamentary polls supposed to be held by the year-end, said sources at the EC Secretariat quoting from the letter sent to the police headquarters and DGFI.

In the run-up to the cancelled January 22 election last year, security agencies had declared over 19,000 polling stations “vulnerable”, 500 “severely vulnerable” while 13,500 “normal”, according to information available at the EC Secretariat.

The categorisation was meant to help the administration take security measures according to nature of the polling stations.

But there were allegations that the then ruling alliance led by BNP-Jamaat had influenced the security agencies to identify a large number of polling stations in the traditional stronghold of Awami League (AL) and its allies as posing security risks.

Now the current EC wants to see if the grading was done on political considerations, observed a senior official at the EC Secretariat.

Since November last year, it has been working to select prospective polling centres for the national and local government polls with help from the army personnel to avoid controversy.

According to its directives, the field-level election officials have been selecting polling stations on completion of voter registration in their areas.

Sources in the EC Secretariat said the job is nearing completion in at least 55 upazilas, four city corporations and seven municipalities.

“In many cases, centres were changed or relocated or set up afresh under unwarranted influence, which is one of the major obstacles to holding a fair election,” the EC said in a circular issued on November 4 last year for the field-level election officials.

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