Staff Correspondent

The Election Commission will arrange special security measures at "risky polling centres" ahead of elections, election commissioner Muhammad Sohul Hossain said Sunday.

"We are gathering information on risky polling centres through intelligence organisations and polling officers," Sohul said to reporters at the Election Commission Secretariat.

"We will decide what measures are appropriate to protect them against potential breaches of law once we have finished gathering the information," he said. The EC is considering holding elections for four city corporations such as Rajshahi, Khulna, Barisal and Sylhet where the elections of new office bearers are overdue.

The commission is thinking of a similar move for the seven municipalities of Shariatpur, Shitakunda, Cox's Bazaar, Gopalganj, Sreepur, Fulbarhia and Manikganj.

Ahead of the cancelled January 2007 national polls, 33,735 polling centres were arranged, where a total of 9.3 crore voters were to have cast their votes. In the eighth parliamentary polls, 29,977 polling centres had been readied for 7.5 crore voters.

The commissioner said the number of polling centres for the upcoming national polls may surpass 33,000 in which approximately eight crore voters will be registered. "The EC is taking steps to proscribe all political slogans on walls ahead of the elections through changes in the election code of conduct," the commissioner said.

"We initially wanted to bar all graffiti, although we changed our minds after a number of organisations wrote to us saying such a drastic decision would jeopardise the livelihood of many involved in advertising."

"We may propose to the local government ministry that they allow wall writing for advertising commercial products," said the commissioner. Sohul said voter registration was "a continuous process" and those who had failed to do so would now have to go to their local election office following a notification from the commission.

Comments

Add New

Write comment
Name:
Email:	We don't publish your mail. See privacy policy.
Title:
	Please input the anti-spam code that you can read in the image.