The Election Commission of Bangladesh on Friday embarked on a countrywide drive to enlist eligible voters in the electoral roll ahead of the 12th parliamentary polls. The data of potential voters and deceased voters will be collected in four phases.  In the first phase, enumerators will go for door-to-door data collection till June 09 in 139 upazilas of 64 districts. Also read:FM highlights work towards 'free, fair and transparent' elections During the drive, the data of eligible voters who were born on or before January 1, 2005, will be collected to publish the latest electoral roll on March 02, 2023. Besides, the enumerators will collect the data of youths who were born before January 2, 2007, but would be eligible to cast their ballot in 2024 and 2025. During the data collection campaign, the existing voters can apply for updating their address. Alongside the eligible voters, the enumerators will also collect the data of deceased voters to drop their names from the voter list. Chief Election Commissioner Kazi Habibul Awal unveiled the data collection drive at Savar Upazila Parishad auditorium in the morning. Besides, four election commissioners unveiled the programme in four districts -- Manikganj, Sirajganj, Khulna and Shariatpur. Since the data is being collected to update the country’s voter list for the next three years -- 2023, 2024 and 2025, the Election Commission has estimated a 7.5% voter growth following the campaign. In 2019, the EC last collected the field-level data of eligible voters to update the voter list for three years -- 2020, 2021 and 2022. If anyone wants to be enrolled in the voter list, the person needs to have a 17-digit online birth registration certificate, academic certificates (if applicable), and photocopies of national identity card of father or mother and that of utility bills. This time, some 56,000 enumerators and 11,300 supervisors have been appointed to glean the field-level data to update the voter list. An enumerator on an average will collect data of 180 potential voters. Also read: AL wants election with participation of all parties: Hasan Mahmud There would be union-level registration centres in upazilas and ward-level registration centres in cities and municipalities to collect biometric data --pictures and fingerprints — of the eligible voters.  The aspirants will be given print copies of their data during the collection. In order to prevent the Rohingya refugees from enrolling into the voter list, the EC has taken a special cautionary measure for 32 particular areas in Chattogram.  The voter registration forms will be scrutinised by special committees in the 32 special areas. Besides, the Rohingya database containing their biometrics will be used during the voter list updation programme, UNB has learnt. Currently, the number of voters in the country is some 11.33 crore (precisely 113,287,010). The voters include 57,689,529 males, 55,597,027 females and 454 transgenders.

A group of BNP grassroots leaders on Thursday urged the party policymakers to prepare the party’s all units in Dhaka for waging a movement for forcing the government to quit and hold the 12th parliamentary polls under a neutral administration. In a closed-door meeting, they also said BNP will not get benefits by forming an electoral alliance with the ‘one-man-show’ parties. The BNP grassroots leaders, however, said the party should make efforts to bring all the opposition parties under a single platform to launch a simultaneous movement, led by BNP, with a demand for the restoration of an election-time neutral government, a party leader, who was present at the meeting, told UNB. He said most of the leaders also urged the party high-command to take a tough stance on not joining any election under the current government and intensify diplomatic efforts to get the international community’s support in favour of their demand for a polls-time neutral government. BNP top leaders sat with its executive committee members under Khulna, Rajshahi and Barishal divisions today (Thursday), wrapping up their planned six series of meetings with the central and grassroots leaders. Read: BNP policymakers in another closed-door meeting Party sources said 86 leaders participated in the meeting and 65 of them gave their opinions about how BNP should get ready for an anti-government movement and the next general election. BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, standing committee members Khandaker Mosharraf Hossain, Gayeshwar Chandra Roy, Selima Rahman and Iqbal Hasan Mahmud Tuku were present at the meeting. Party acting chairman Tarique Rahman virtually joined it from London. Talking to reporters after the meeting, Mirza Fakhrul said in their six meetings in two phases around 300 central and grassroots leaders talked about their organisational issues and how to ‘restore’ democracy in the country free Khaleda Zia from jail, and get rid of the current ‘authoritarian’ government. He said they took note of the speeches of all the leaders and those will be discussed in the meeting of their standing committee to work out the next course of action. “We’ll let you know later about what programmes are taken in our meeting." As part of their second round of series meetings, the BNP top leaders sat with the party’s executive committee members under Dhaka and Faridpur organisational divisions on Tuesday and with the leaders under Chattogram, Cumilla, Mymensingh, Sylhet and Rangpur divisions on Wednesday. Read: BNP plans series of party central leaders’ meetings Earlier, the BNP policymakers had three closed-door meetings with party vice-chairmen, advisory council members, joint secretaries general, organising secretaries, assistant organising secretaries and secretaries and the top leaders of the party’s different associate bodies last week. A total of 491 party leaders joined the six meetings. The meetings were held as part of the party’s planned series of meetings with BNP rank and file to know their views about the party’s next course of action ahead of the next general election. BNP formed a 502-member national executive committee through its sixth national council on March 19, 2016. BNP held its last executive committee meeting at Le Meridian Hotel on February 3, 2018, just four days before Khaleda was sent to jail in a graft case.