\nDhaka \/\/<\/p>\n
An amendment to the relevant regulations for Union Parishad (UP) elections has been published, raising the expenditure limit for chairman candidates to Tk 10 lakh. The expenditure limit for member candidates has been set at Tk 2 lakh. Additionally, the Election Commission (EC) has increased the security deposit for chairman candidates from Tk 5,000 to Tk 25,000 and for member candidates from Tk 1,000 to Tk 5,000.<\/p>\n
Under the new provisions, a candidate’s security deposit will be forfeited if they fail to secure at least 15 percent of the votes cast. A requirement has also been introduced for chairman candidates to disclose details of their assets held both within the country and abroad in their affidavits. A notification regarding the UP Election Rules (Amendment)\u2014signed by EC Senior Secretary Akhtar Ahmed on September 17\u2014was issued and subsequently published on Wednesday. Previously, the maximum expenditure limit was Tk 5 lakh for chairman candidates and Tk 1 lakh for member candidates.<\/p>\n
The amended rules enhance the Commission’s authority to curb violations of the electoral code of conduct. Upon receiving allegations of rule violations against a candidate or their election agent\u2014based on records or written reports from any source\u2014the Commission can conduct an investigation and cancel the candidacy.<\/p>\n
Furthermore, the Commission can suspend the results of a polling station if the process is severely compromised due to the use of force, intimidation, manipulation, or other malpractices. Following an inquiry, if deemed necessary, the Commission can cancel the election at that station and order a re-poll.<\/p>\n
A provision for a re-poll has been introduced to replace the lottery system in cases where two or more candidates secure an equal number of the highest votes. Under the amended rules, the Commission will instruct the Returning Officer to conduct a re-poll among the candidates who tied for the highest number of votes in such a scenario.<\/p>\n
Presiding officers may grant permission for a voter\u2014who is visually or physically impaired or otherwise requires assistance\u2014to be accompanied by a person aged at least 21 to assist in casting their vote. If the voter is unable to mark the ballot paper themselves, the assistant may mark it according to the voter’s instructions. However, the assistant cannot be a candidate, a candidate’s agent, a polling official, or a member of law enforcement agencies. The assistant must be instructed to maintain the secrecy of the voter’s choice. The Presiding Officer will also maintain a list of such voters.<\/p>\n
The regulations classify the following actions as offenses: threatening, intimidating, assaulting, or forcibly obstructing individuals on election duty, Commission-approved media personnel, or observers, as well as damaging the equipment they use. Similarly, obstructing voters from reaching polling stations and preventing candidates from filing nomination papers or forcing them to withdraw their candidacies are also considered offenses. These offenses are punishable by up to two years in prison, a fine of Tk 10,000, or both.<\/p>\n
Following the announcement of the Union Parishad (UP) election schedule, the Commission may form the necessary number of monitoring committees to oversee election-related offenses and violations of the code of conduct. It is stipulated that if a candidate, election agent, or polling agent fails to appear at the appointed time, any legally conducted proceedings will not be rendered invalid due to their absence. However, the Returning Officer or Presiding Officer must make every effort to ensure their presence and report the reason for any absence to the Commission in writing.<\/p>\n
The upcoming UP election will be held using non-partisan symbols. Twenty symbols have been allocated for the Chairman post, twelve for general member seats, and ten for reserved seats.
\nRead the news and share your opinion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Dhaka \/\/ An amendment to the relevant regulations for Union Parishad (UP) elections has been published, raising the expenditure limit for chairman candidates to Tk 10 lakh. The expenditure limit for member candidates has been set at Tk 2 lakh. Additionally, the Election Commission (EC) has increased the security deposit for chairman candidates from Tk 5,000 to Tk 25,000 and for member candidates from Tk 1,000 to Tk 5,000. Under the new provisions, a candidate’s security deposit will be forfeited if they fail to secure at least 15 percent of<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8979,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8978","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","category-top-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedailymorningsun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8978","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedailymorningsun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedailymorningsun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedailymorningsun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedailymorningsun.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8978"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thedailymorningsun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8978\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8980,"href":"https:\/\/thedailymorningsun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8978\/revisions\/8980"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedailymorningsun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8979"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedailymorningsun.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8978"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedailymorningsun.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8978"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedailymorningsun.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8978"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}