The Election Commission has begun to work on the delimitation process of the parliamentary constituencies where there are issues or dispute over the boundary of the parliamentary seats.
The EC will be working on the 300 seats, but EC officials said they see possibilities of minor changes in the delimitation of 50 to 60 constituencies ahead of the next general election.
The delimitation became necessary because of the creation or bifurcation of local government bodies like Upazilas, municipalities, city corporations and union councils and the inclusion of the enclaves in five years after the last demarcation of the constituencies in 2013.
The EC is now collecting information from the government on the administrative areas created or changed in past five years.
It sent letters to the deputy commissioners and election officers of the 64 districts, seeking necessary documents on Dec 18.
The 11th parliamentary election is scheduled to take place between December 2018 and January 2019.
After taking office in February, the KM Nurul Huda-led EC announced a roadmap or work plan on July 16 for the next parliamentary election.
According to the plan, the work to demarcate the constituencies was supposed to end by December this year.
The EC had said it would make new guidelines on the demarcation of the parliamentary seats in July and August.
It would hold a discussion with the geographic information system or GIS experts in August, make a draft of the demarcation in October, call for objections in November and gazette the final delimitation in December, the EC had said in the work plan.
As the work for delimitation did not start in line with the plan, now the EC has moved to demarcate the constituencies following the existing law – the Delimitation of Constituencies Ordinance, 1976, reports bdnews24.
The Huda-led EC had also planned to finalise the draft of the ‘Delimitation of Constituencies for Elections to Parliament Act, 2017’ before the next election to delimit the parliamentary seats.
Before starting the process of delimiting, Election Commissioner Rafiqul Islam held meetings with representatives from the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics, LGED and land ministries recently.
Asked about the progress, Rafiqul said they were taking preparations keeping in mind that they would have to finish the work either the existing law or a new one.
“If a new law is not passed or delayed, our work will not stop. That’s why we are discussing with the related people how we can demarcate the constituencies under the existing law.
Election Commissioner Kabita Khanam told reporters last week that it would take much time to make a new law. “That’s why we depend on the existing ordinance,” she said.