Chief Election Commissioner AMM Nasir Uddin has said that the voting rights of people will be restored at any cost. "People have lost interest in voting due to the lack of opportunities, and we aim to address their regrets," he said while inaugurating the voter list updating programme-2025 at the Savar Upazila Parishad auditorium on Monday morning. The CEC said that the voting rights will be realised when common people will be able to vote for their preferred candidate without fear. During the event, election commissioners urged data collectors to remain vigilant, as the number of female voters in the latest update programme was alarmingly low. They have also warned against voters who vote in two places simultaneously. The door-to-door data collection campaign will continue till February 3 and the collection of biometric data of the eligible voters will be taken from February 5 to April 11. During the field-level data collection campaign, enumerators will collect the data of eligible voters who were born on and before January 1, 2008. Read: No conflict between reform and election: Fakhrul Besides, the enumerators will collect applications from the existing voters who intended to change voting addresses and the data of deceased voters for dropping their names from the voter list. According to the Electoral Training Institute, more than 66,000 people have already received training over the voter listing updating programme. The trained people include 55,016 enumerators and 11,801 supervisors. The EC will publish the draft updated electoral rolls incorporating the names of new voters on January 2, 2026. Following the resettlement of claims and objections, the commission will make the final electoral rolls on March 2, 2026. The Election Commission has recently issued a notification with 16 instructions for the officials and enumerators who will be engaged in the data collection drive. Read more: Main goal is to ensure free, fair election: EC Sanaullah The instructions include collection of data of those persons who had been born on and before January 1, 2008 but have remained out of the voter lists, ascertaining if such persons became voters in the past, writing proper spelling of names of possible voters in both Bangla and English and being careful so that the data of Rohingyas and foreign nationals could no way be collected. According to the existing voter lists (published on March 2, 2024), there are 121.85 million (121,850,160) voters in the country.

Jatiya Party (JaPa) on Tuesday announced its candidacy for elections to five parliamentary seats left vacant after BNP MPs resignation. By-polls to the five parliamentary seats will be held on February 1 next year. The candidates finally nominated by the National Party Nomination Board are – Hafiz Uddin Ahmed for Thakurgaon-3, Md Nurul Islam Omar for Bogura-6, Shahin Mostafa Kamal Bogura-4 and Md Rezaul Islam Bhuiyan for Brahmanbaria-2. Khandaker Delwar Jalali, press secretary to the JaPa chairman, revealed this in a press release today. Read more: By-elections to 5 vacant seats of BNP MPs on Feb 1, 2023 The Election Commission (EC) announced the schedule of the by-elections on December 18.  EC will conduct the by-polls to parliamentary seats -- Thakurgaon-3, Bogura-4, Bogura-6, Chapainawabganj-2 and Brahmanbaria-2. The EC secretary said candidates can submit their nomination papers till January 5. Returning officers will scrutinize the nomination papers on January 8 and January 15 has been set as the last date for withdrawal of candidature. Read more: By-polls to 5 vacant seats: AL to start distributing application forms Wednesday

Awami League General Secretary Obaidul Qauder on Saturday announced a general amnesty for rebel candidates of local government elections and those who were involved in anti-disciplinary activities of the party. He said this to journalists after a meeting of the ruling party’s national committee at Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s government residence Ganababhan in the capital. Read more: Chhatra League lifts suspension of Eden College committee He said the general amnesty was for those breaching party discipline, contesting in local elections as rebel candidates and internal feud after over 100 applications were placed for the amnesty. Quader, also road, transport and bridges minister, said the budget for holding the party’s council was fixed at Tk 3.13 core by reducing Tk 30 lakh in line with the austerity drive of the government. Read more: BNP MPs' decision to resign a 'mistake': Obaidul Quader

The final results of the 40th Bangladesh Civil Service (BCS) examination were published on Wednesday. The Bangladesh Public Service Commission (PSC) recommended appointment of 1,963 candidates to different cadre posts, said a press release. Read: 43rd BCS preliminary test results published Meanwhile 8,166 successful candidates have been kept for non-cadre posts subject to appointment based on vacancy. Details of the results are available at PSC website: www.bpsc.gov.bd.  To fill 1,903 vacant posts of different cadres, the BPSC published a circular in 2018. Later, 316 vacant posts were also added to it. Read: HC orders appointment of 84 BCS successful candidates Among 10,964 candidates, who faced the viva-voce, 10,254 came out successful.

Some 5,447 candidates remained absent on the first day as the Secondary School Certificate (SSC) examinations began on Monday.