The Election Commission (EC) on Tuesday announced the date of Gaibandha-5 by-polls on January 4 in 2023 as the EC earlier suspended the by-polls on charge of alleged irregularities.
Jahangir Alam, Secretary of the EC secretariat, formally made the announcement to the newsmen after a meeting at the Nirbachon Bhabhan at Agargaon in Dhaka.
The polls will be held by Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) will continue till 4:30pm after starting from 8:30am in the morning.
“The EC has changed the Returning Officer (RO) of the polls in light of the recommendation placed by the probe committee as Faridul Islam, Regional Electoral Official of the Dhaka region, has appointed as the new returning officer of the by-polls”, Alam told the journalists.
“The by-polls will be monitored closely through the close circuit camera (CCC) centrally from the EC Commission in the capital”, said the EC official.
Replying to a query on holding electoral campaign, the EC Secretary said the campaign obviously will take place as the partial schedule of the election has so far been announced and all the activities will happen as per the electoral rules.
“There is no barriers on the way of carrying out by-polls campaign immediately after announcement of the polls schedule”, said EC’s joint secretary Farhad Ahamed replying to another query.
The constituency of the parliament was declared vacant following the death of former Deputy Speaker Advocate Fazle Rabbi Miah on July 22, 2022.
The EC has decided to take punitive actions against 133 officials including the returning officer, additional deputy commissioner, executive magistrate, five Police Sub-Inspectors (SI) and polling officers due to their involvement in irregularities and negligence in duty during the by-polls of Gaibandha-5.
On October 12, this year, the EC has shut down 51 polling centers out of 145 within four hours after beginning of the polls as gross irregularities were found on CCC that was centrally supervised by the EC’s monitoring team headed by Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Quazi Habibul Awal.
Later, the commission forced to suspend the polling before one and hour hours to end the by-polls.
