The Election Commission (EC) is likely to announce the schedule for the third phase of the 10th Union Parishad (UP) elections tomorrow (Thursday).
At this phase, voting is likely to take place in more than 1,000 UPs in the country. The schedule may be announced after the commission meeting on Thursday, said EC sources.
The meeting will be held with Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) KM Nurul Huda in the chair. ‘After the meeting on that day, the schedule of the third phase of UP polls will be announced,’ an official of the EC Secretariat told the Bangladesh Post on Tuesday.
EC Secretary Humayun Kabir Khandaker will announce the decision of commission meeting.
The agenda of the EC meeting include the third phase of the Union Parishad elections, the eighth phase of municipal elections, other elections, and by-elections of local government bodies and miscellaneous.
Earlier, after the commission’s last meeting, Humayun Kabir Khandaker had said that the third phase of UP polls will be discussed at the next commission meeting. The commission will also decide on other elections, he added.
According to the sources, the voting date for the third phase of UP polls will be fixed considering the upcoming SSC and HSC examinations. The SSC and equivalent examinations will start on November 14 and end on November 23.
The HSC examination will start on December 2 and end on December 30.
The EC won’t vote during the SSC examination. There is a break between SSC and HSC exams. In that break, the commission wants to complete at least two phases of UP polls, said an EC official.
In addition, in the case of HSC exams, the subjects that have more breaks before the exam time may be the rest for the voting.
In this case, the EC can take votes between 16 December to 18 December and 24 December to 26 December.
The EC has already taken votes in 369 UPs in the first phase. In the second phase, voting will be held in 848 UPs on November 11.
At present, there are 4,581 Union Parishads in the country. Of these, voting will be held in about 4,500 UPs. In some cases, elections won’t be held in some UPs due to legal complexity.
Union council elections were held nine times since the country became independent.
The first UP elections were held in 1973 and the last UP elections were held in 2016.
Besides, 1977, 1983, 1988, 1992, 1997, 2003, 2011 UP elections have been held.
Besides, the tenth UP election is being held in 2021. The last time the party symbol was announced for the first time on February 11, 2016, was the ninth UP election schedule.
Voting was held in 4,275 UPs in six phases from 22 March to 4 June 2016.