Shawdesh Desk:

Visiting European Union Election Exploratory Mission on Tuesday enquired about the Election Commission’s preparations for the next parliamentary polls in Bangladesh.

The mission also wanted to know whether there was any timeframe for submitting application for sending election observers to Bangladesh.

The members of the mission placed their questions during a meeting for about an hour since 11:00am at Nirbachan Bhaban of Agargaon area in Dhaka.

After the meeting, EC additional secretary Ashok Kumar Debnath told reporters that the commission informed them that it would be good for them if they send application by September as there were some other formalities from home and foreign ministries.

‘The commission said that they [EU] could send as many as neutral observer’, he said.

Ashok said that the delegation also enquired about EC’s preparation for holding the next elections.

The mission wanted to know about voter list. polling centres and CCTV installations, he said.

Chief election commissioner Kazi Habibul Awal answered different questions of the members of the mission.

Following the meeting, the EU delegation head Ricardo Cheller told reporters, ‘We are here for assessing pre-electoral condition in order to prepare an analysis for high representative of the EU who will then decide whether or not to deploy an election observation mission of the EU [during the upcoming general election in Bangladesh].’