Hasina orders Dhaka city polls

sheikh HasinaThe government may announce soon elections to Dhaka’s two city corporations.

Prime minister Sheikh Hasina on Monday asked the local government ministry to arrange the polls for electing office bearers of Dhaka North and Dhaka South city corporations.

At the weekly cabinet meeting, she expressed her interest in city polls although the issue was not in the agenda.

“How would it happen if there is an election (of city corporations)?” she was quoted as saying in the meeting, where local government minister Syed Ashraful Islam was present.

Sheikh Hasina then ordered the ministry to arrange the elections within the shortest possible time.

Both the government and the Election Commission have in the past indicated holding of the elections in the bifurcated Dhaka city corporations, but no schedule was announced formally.

In 2013, the government held elections in five city corporations — Khulna, Rajshahi, Barisal, Sylhet and Gazipur — where the BNP-backed candidates made a full sweep.

Sources in the local government ministry claimed that the elections could not be held due to dispute over demarcation of areas of wards. “That issue has been resolved now,” a source said.

The Election Commission earlier on 25 January sent a letter to the finance division, seeking fund for meeting the costs of holding the elections.

Chief election commission Kazi Rakibuddin Ahmed told newsmen in January that the EC is ready to hold the city polls despite the ongoing political confrontations over holding of parliamentary elections.

The EC secretariat sources said the city elections could be held within the current (2014-15) fiscal year. The government earmarked Tk 50 crore in the budget for the purpose of holding elections.

The Dhaka City Corporation was bifurcated into Dhaka North and Dhaka South in 2011. The tenure of elected officials of the then Dhaka City Corporation expired in 2007.

Source: Prothom Alo

3 COMMENTS

  1. Hasina does everything from a strategic advantage. The coyntry is in turmoil and now, she wants to divert attanetion of people to something else. For last 6 years she mocked the people by holding an international crimes tribunal in her own method. She has been well trained by her friends in the other side of the border for a long period. The training was for “how to stay in power for a long time”. She has been molded for the Indira model. A woman who dared to do things. Hasina things she is Indira and she is daring and men are holding their stuff afraid of getting neutered.

  2. This is a mockery of the electoral process. She did not have this election for years and now all of a sudden, she is ordering an election because she thinks, her party people will win at this time. If she waits a bit longer AL may lose the support. Do we really need to be subjected top a PM who twists and turn our democratic values at her will?? Are we a bunch of goats tended by a shepherd?

  3. This woman has put all senior leaders of BNP in jail or kept them hiding. So now it will be best time for her to hand pick her own person for the mayor ships. So easy thing to do. A scoundrel of person could have these kinds of ideas. She is a disgrace to Bangladesh.

Comments are closed.