CEC urges upazila election officers to discharge dutieswithout fear or favour

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Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) ATM Shamsul Huda Monday urged the newly appointed upazila election officers to discharge their professional duties without fear or favour remaining above any political affiliation, reports UNB.
"You should consider your job as 'ebadat' (prayer) and continue your duties with utmost confidence and responsibility," he said while inaugurating a training course for organisation and election management in the NEC conference room at Agargaon in the city.
Dr Huda said all officers at the EC secretariat as well as the newly appointed upazila election officers should be computer-literate to cope up with the digitalisation in order to go up in their service.
"You have to be properly computer-literate and even learn the task of data entry. If you fail to do it, your next promotion will be superseded," the CEC told his staff, now that the election process, including the voting role, is digitised.
He also urged the young election officers to look into the ongoing construction task of upazila server stations so that the workers could properly finish their jobs. "The server stations are your own buildings and look into whether the workers mix cement, sand and chips of brick properly," he said.
He further said that they should report to the senior officials concerned to take steps if the workers were found doing fraud.
Reminding that the Election Commission (EC) as an independent constitutional body, he said it (EC) was not under any ministry according to the Election Commission Act and no outsiders could influence the Commission. "You have to continue your work according to the rules of EC," he said.
Dr Huda suggested the election officers that they should not put the Election Commission in embarrassing situation by giving their immature statement to the press.
Mentioning that the EC has now a 3,000-strong manpower of its own, he said some 0.55 million people need to be involved during the election and the number might rise to a one million (10 lakh) if the law-enforcing agencies were added. "So you have to continue your duties keeping your heads cool and quiet. Otherwise you will be ostracised."
The CEC said the newly recruited officers should sincerely continue their work with a view to glorifying the image of the Commission.