EC doing its job, not under any pressure: CEC

Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Kazi Habibul Awal has said the Election Commission is not under any pressure, and is doing its job.

He said this in response to a question from journalists at Nirbachan Bhaban after visiting the Zila Parishad election monitoring cell on Sunday.

Zila Parishad elections will be held tomorrow (October 17, 2022) – 9am to 2pm – in 57 districts.

The EC will monitor the polls through CCTV cameras, from the monitoring cell at Nirbachan Bhaban.

The Election Commission on Wednesday suspended the by-elections to Gainbandha-5 parliamentary seat over widespread allegations of vote rigging and voter intimidation.

The CEC said the practice of using CCTV cameras is recent. "We can monitor the elections from here. This is a good practice."

"We belong to no party. We want voters to be able to cast their votes. We are using CCTV cameras for ensuring this," he added.

In response to a question over how the EC will monitor so many centres through CCTV during the national polls, Election Commissioner Alamgir said, "There will be 400,000 polling booths at 40,000 or 42,000 polling stations during the national election. The five election commissioners alone will not monitor the national election, more manpower will be engaged for monitoring."

In response to another question, the election commissioner said that CCTV cameras will be used in every centre during tomorrow's Zila Parishad election, as done with Gaibandha-5 by-election.

Voting in the Zila Parishad elections will be held at 925 booths in 462 centres across the  country and 60,866 voters will cast their votes.