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The government is unaware of the Election Commission’s announcement regarding the schedule for Union Parishad (UP) elections, Local Government, Rural Development and Cooperatives State Minister Mir Shah Alam has said.
He made the remarks while speaking to reporters at the Secretariat on Tuesday morning, a day after Election Commissioner Abul Fazl Md Sanullah said that the UP elections would be held in seven phases.
Mir Shah Alam said neither the government nor the Ministry of Local Government had any knowledge of the election dates. “There has been no correspondence between the government and the Election Commission on the matter, nor have there been any discussions through other channels,” he said.
The state minister acknowledged that the Election Commission is an independent constitutional body with the authority to conduct elections. However, he said the commission normally discusses local government elections with the government before announcing a schedule. Preparatory meetings and law-and-order committee meetings are also held, involving issues such as the budget, he added.
“Neither the Ministry of Local Government nor the government has had any discussion with the Election Commission. The government knows nothing about this,” Mir Shah Alam said.
The Election Commission announced on Monday that the UP elections would be held in seven phases. Election Commissioner Abul Fazl Md Sanullah told reporters at the Election Commission office in Agargaon that the tentative date for the first phase is November 12, which would mark the beginning of the local government elections.
According to the EC, the second phase is tentatively scheduled for December 13, the third for December 30, the fourth for January 17 next year, the fifth for February 4, the sixth for April 22 and the seventh for May 27.
Earlier, the Election Commission had announced in August that it planned to begin local government elections in October.
In June, the then local government minister told Parliament in response to a question that local government elections could be held across the country in phases from September or October, after the monsoon season. However, that plan did not materialise.