No one can campaign for polls till Dec 18: EC

Staff Reporter :
The Election Commission on Thursday directed that nobody will be allowed to take part in the election campaign till December 18 as the EC will allocate the electoral symbol on that day.

According to the electoral rules, the election campaign will start for all parties 21 days before the election date and continue till January 5, EC Secretary Md Jahangir Alam said at a press briefing at its office in Dhaka.
He said that the commission is yet to decide when the ballots will be sent to the polling centres.

“After allocation of the electoral symbols, the ballots will be readied and then will be sent to the districts three or four days before the polls. But it will be decided later when we will send the ballots to the voting centres,” he added.

Replying to a query about the code of conduct violation after announcement of election schedule, the secretary said, nobody complained to them in this regard yet.

About the transfer of the government officials, the secretary said, “We don’t know if such transfers happened after the election schedule announcement. From now on if any such decision is needed, the ministry concerned will send the proposal to the EC and then it will give their opinion.”

He also said that if any local government representative wants to take part in the upcoming parliamentary election, he or she will need to resign first.