Staff Reporter:
Senior Secretary of the Election Commission (EC) Secretariat Akhtar Ahmed yesterday said that the election commission is preparing to hold the 13th National Parliamentary Election and the referendum on the same day.
“We know that both the national election and the referendum will be held on the same day. Therefore, we already had that preparation… a mental readiness. This is how it should be,” he said while respond-ing to a question from journalists during a briefing at Nirbachan Bhaban in the capital’s Agargaon.
Akhtar Ahmed said, “When you know a responsibility is coming, don’t you naturally become mentally prepared? We were mentally prepared. We have done the groundwork in advance.”
On Saturday from 8 am to 12 noon, the commission will hold a mock voting rehearsal at Sher-e-Bangla Nagar Government Girls’ High School, he said.
“Since both the national election and the referendum will take place simultaneously, we want to refine our experience further so we can conduct it properly,” the EC’s senior secretary said.
“Based on this, we will determine whether the number of polling centers needs to be increased or de-creased, or kept the same. How much adjustment the number of voting booths will require, whether ad-justments are needed at all—these things need to be assessed. That is why we are conducting the mock voting” said Akhtar Ahmed.
