Staff Corrspondent

Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) A M M Nasir Uddin has dismissed the Local Government Reform Commission’s recommendation to hold local body polls by June, saying that the commission will not be able to proceed with doing so as the voter list has yet been completed.

Rather, the commission remains busy arranging the national election by December in line with the announcement of the chief adviser, said the CEC while addressing a programme at the Electoral Training Institute in Dhaka on Monday.

“We are progressing with a target to hold the national election by December. We will have to announce the election schedule, keeping at least two months in our hands,” he told the discussion organised by Reporters Forum for Election & Democracy (RFED).

Apart from the Local Government Reform Commission, an adviser of the interim government has recently put importance on holding the local body polls before the national election to improve the country’s law and order situation.

Besides, BNP and some like-minded political parties, including Bangladesh Jatiya Party (Andaleeve Rahman Partho), during the first meeting of the National Consensus Commission, expressed their reluctance saying that they will not accept any election before the national election.

The local body election will be possible by June if 16 lakh dead voters are excluded and new voters are not included in the updated voter list, he said adding the work of the updating voter list will end by June.

Claiming that a political debate over the local and national elections is going on, Nasir Uddin said his commission does not want to be a part of the dispute.

“I am not interested in making any prior remarks. We are working in line with the chief adviser’s announcement,” said the CEC.

Responding to a query, he said the country’s overall situation is expected to stabilise before December and the commission will create a conducive atmosphere where the countrymen will focus solely on the election.