Election Commissioner Md Shah Nawaz on Monday said the Election Commission has to arrange the next parliamentary elections by January 24 under any circumstances.
“According to the Constitution, we’ve to hold elections in time. But we hope for the best. We expect that all political parties will join,” he told reporters at his Election Commission secretariat office replying to a query whether the Commission will hold the election if BNP boycotts it.
“The elections will be fair if all political parties join the polls,” he said.
Turning to controversial BNF which has applied for having registered with the EC, Shah Nawaz said they will not give registration to the party if it fails to fulfill registration requirements.
He said the Commission has not yet got the investigation report. “We’ll take the decision in this regard once the investigation report is in hand.”
Referring to some media reports, he said, “It’s a blatant lie that we’ve given the party the third chance to fulfill registration conditions. It was given the second chance as it got aggrieved at the investigation reports sent by the EC field-level officials.”
“Following BNF’s objection, we formed committees headed by Additional Deputy Commissioners to reinvestigate the matter,” he added.
The main opposition, Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), is opposition the registration of BNF as it applied to the EC for getting registered using BNP’s logo, Ziaur Rahman’s portrait and his 19-point programme and sheaf of wheat as election symbol which looks like BNP’s symbol sheaf of paddy.
As many as 43 new political parties have applied for registration within the extended deadline of January 31 this year after the EC issued a public notification in October last year.
The Commission initially picked two parties — BNF and Bangladesh Sangskritik Muktijot– for giving registration.
The commission found the newly floated party BNF failed to fulfill the registration’s conditions even in the second investigation reports.
Source: UNB Connect
