Differences in the EC

This is somewhat reminiscent of the internal tussle the ACC was suffering from in its seminal stage, and one suspects, still does. And, this is something we hardly expect in the most important institution of democracy in Bangladesh, which the EC is.

Without even attempting to go into the relative merit of the options, it must be said that the five-yearly exercise of voting requires that certain arrangements, for example the voter-list, complete in all respect, should be in place before the polling is conducted. There is certainly a need to include the many new voters that have come of the voting age since the last election, as there is the need to delete from the list all those that have passed away since then. Otherwise, there is a good chance that many dead persons would end up voting while many that are alive deprived of it because their names were not on the list. In other words the voters list must undergo scrutiny to make it current and inclusive, it really doesn't matter to us what name the EC chooses to call this exercise by.

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The EC is a statutory body entrusted with the task of conducting elections. It must, therefore, bring to bear all its power on conducting a free and fair election, without any extraneous considerations. To see a lack of harmonious environment and absence of a consultative culture in the exercise of its responsibility is not only unwarranted, presence of demonstrated dissonance in the EC is most disconcerting also.

We expect the EC to organise its thoughts in order to harmonise its actions while it goes about the business of conducting elections.