FE Today Logo
Search date: 30-10-2024 Return to current date: Click here

Quick turn of events on political front

Search committee for EC formed

Country boards election train, extraordinary polls be held: Law Adviser


FE REPORT | October 30, 2024 00:00:00


A sitting Supreme Court judge heads the search committee the interim government formed to reconstitute the Election Commission to put Bangladesh on election train, in a fast turn of events in the post-uprising situation.

Justice Zubayer Rahman Chowdhury of the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court has been nominated to lead the search panel in picking new chief election commissioner and commissioners, officials said.

And a Justice of the SC's High Court Division, A K M Asaduzzaman, has been nominated as a member of the committee.

Chief Justice Syed Refaat Ahmed recommended their names, and the Supreme Court administration sent the recommendations to the Cabinet Division of the government on Tuesday.

The move will pave the way for holding national elections to fill the vacuum following the overthrow of the  Sheikh Hasina-led government in August amid a countrywide uprising.

Also, the EC fell vacant with the previous commission headed by Kazi Habibul Awal announced resignation en masse amid poll controversies in the first week of September.

Regarding the formation of search committee, Law and Justice Adviser Dr Asif Nazrul earlier in the day (Tuesday) disclosed that a notification in this regard would be published soon.

"Our journey towards election has begun through the development," he told the newsmen at a meeting in the Secretariat.

The adviser also said following the formation of search committee, a (new) EC will be constituted. Subsequently, the voter list will be revised for a fresh start in the electoral arena.

"We will hold no fake elections, rather an extraordinary, free and fair election," said the law professor, in an implicit reference to the much-debated immediate-past three polls that pushed the polity into crises leading up to the August-5th student-mass uprising that overthrew the Hasina government at the outset of her consecutive fourth stint as prime minister.

The post-uprising government, headed by Nobel laureate Prof Muhammad Yunus as Chief Adviser, has taken up massive reforms in line with the student protesters' declaration on 'reconstruction of the state'. Political parties in movement also have reform recipes.

But the politicians of late kept pressing for a roadmap to polls alongside reforms necessary for fair elections.

[email protected]


Share if you like