BANGLADESH

Around 10,000 people will miss out on voting in the Narayanganj City Corporation (NCC) elections as the voter list has not been updated.

According to Election Commission estimates, over 4,000 youths, who became 18 in or after January this year, cannot be included in the electoral roll. Apart from them, there are at least 5,000 eligible people whose names were somehow dropped from the present voter list updated last year.

Election commissioner M Sakhawat Hossain told bdnews24.com on Monday that they cannot vote as the voter list updating activities could not be conducted before the elections this year.

"We don't have enough time in hand. The updating activities will be undertaken in December," he added.

The last voter roll update was done in 2010.

Earlier in 2009, persons attaining eligible voting age that time as well as those who were dropped from the roll for the ninth parliamentary elections were enlisted.

Deputy secretary (elections) at the Election Commission Secretariat Mihir Sarwar Morshed said over 81 million people were enrolled in the voter list prepared before the ninth general elections in 2008, containing photos for the first time.

Over 4.6 million more people were included under the voter list update programmes after two years.

The newly formed Narayanganj City Corporation has 403706 voters — 203,096 males and 200,610 females.

Officials with the photo-based voter list project said the experimental voter roll update activities were completed in Noagaon, Gazipur, Dhaka and Cox's Bazar districts in September.

Prof Tofail Ahmed, executive member of Sushashaner Jonno Nagarik (Sujon), a civil-society organisation, said: "The number of excluded voters may be small, but it can prove decisive in the victory or defeat in the local elections. Not being enrolled in the voter list is a kind of denial of rights."

He said the new voters have a big role in choosing the appropriate candidate. "It would have been better had the updating programme been carried out in the polling areas before announcing the election schedules."