The New Nation - Internet Edition

Staff Reporter

The planned elections in four city corporations and seven pourashavas scheduled to be held in April may be delayed since the Election Commission (EC) was yet to receive the amended local government election regulations.

Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) ATM Shamsul Huda made the hint while talking to journalists at his office yesterday.

He, however, said that the election roadmap would not be hampered even if the local-government elections were delayed by one or two months.

Terming the national elections as the main target of the Commission the CEC said they did not mention any specific date or month in the roadmap for holding the local body elections as it was taken as an additional task.

"It does not matter if the local level elections are shifted to a later date as the main target of Election Commission is to hold the national elections," he said.

Shamsul Huda said the announcement of election schedule for the four city corporations and seven municipalities would be possible only after the EC receives the legal guidelines for holding the polls.

"I cannot announce the election schedule until I get the laws in hand. When the gazette notification of the laws will come in my hand, then I would think of announcing the schedule," he said.

The CEC said the ministry concerned wants to conduct the local elections under the new law and lots of changes are to come in the new law.

Asked whether the Dhaka City Corporation election would be held simultaneously with three other city corporations-Chittagong, Rajshahi and Khulna-he replied in the negative saying that the election of Dhaka City Corporation will be held separately as it is a big matter.

The CEC said the voter registration project cell had informed him that the programme is going on smoothly and about five crore (50 million) voters would have been registered countrywide by March 26.

The EC was preparing to hold polls in the four city corporations of Dhaka, Chittagong, Rajshahi and Khulna, and the seven municipalities of Shariatpur, Shitakunda, Cox's Bazaar, Gopalganj, Sreepur, Fulbaria and Manikganj.