CEC KM Nurul Huda Chief Election Commissioner KM Nurul Huda has set December 23 as the election day for the 11th parliamentary election in his address to the nation, reports bdnews24.com.
He made the announcement in a recorded speech broadcast on Bangladesh TV and Betar at 7.0 pm on Thursday, setting November 19 as the deadline for nomination submission.
The Election Commission will scrutinise the nominations on November 22 and set November 29 as the deadline for the withdrawal of nominations, giving the aspirants a 10-day window to consider their decision.
Nearly 104.2 million people, including a little more than 51.6 million women, are registered as voters. They will elect their 300 representatives to parliament through the balloting in about 40,000 polling stations.
The EC has completed the process of recruiting about 700,000 officials to conduct the polls.
As many as 600,000 members of police, Border Guards Bangladesh (BGB), Bangladesh Coast Guard, Ansar and Village Defence Party will be deployed for law enforcement. In addition, the army will be deployed to aid the civil administration.
Earlier in the day, Huda met his colleagues to finalise the voting day at a meeting that lasted one and a half hours.
The meeting that started at the EC in Agargaon at 11am set the voting date and finalised the cut-off time for the submission and withdrawal of nomination papers and a detailed schedule for the polling day.
Huda's speech came amid the new opposition alliance Jatiya Oikya Front's repeated calls for the commission to defer the election schedule. The ruling Awami League, on the other hand, urged the EC to stick to its plan.
The EC says it is a constitutional binding to hold the election by Jan 28, as the countdown to the polls began.
Huda announced a plan to introduce electronic voting on a limited scale for the first time in parliamentary elections, despite strong opposition from some political parties.
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