Shafiqul Islam (Shafiq)
Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) KM Nurul Huda said that, the Election Commission would be in trouble if the National Identity Card Division (NID) went to the government. These needs to be more discussed. He was responding to reporters’ questions after inaugurating a medical camp for officials and employees at the Electoral Training Institute (ETI) building in the capital’s Agargaon on Wednesday (June 23).
CEC Nurul Huda said that despite the notification of transfer of NID services, there is still chances for discussion. Because EC is a very big organization. There must be a discussion on how to take it or not. It’s not a table-chair that I picked up. So we have to sit in the dialogue and they will offer us to sit. Surely this will be discussed at the secretary level. I will tell them our advantages and disadvantages in the discussion.
Noting that no country in the world has this service under the purview of the Election Commission, the CEC said that on the one hand, the government’s argument is correct. And our argument is that this work is the result of a lot of hard work of the EC.
For this we have created thousands of dedicated staff and they are highly professional. At the end of so many misconceptions, they have been able to create a very high level of technological work. The Election Commission is proud of this. They deserve to be thanked on my behalf for this.
CEC said, we have told the government that it is not possible for any other department to recreate so many people in 12 years. Their argument is that they will take the things of the government. You are not the government. We are not the government but we can provide those services when needed.
Responding to a question to the reporters about the letter from the EC to the cabinet department in this regard, he said, they have just said that they are in the previous decision. A lot of work on it. They will sit with us, there are accounts of infrastructure. There is a process with them, it will be decided. We have stated our position long ago.
Nurul Huda said that the issue of taking NID services to the government has been finalized- this cannot be said. They want to take, we will not give, it can not be said. We are not in that position. We have to sit with them. We will explain our position to them while discussing, then we will see what the decision will be. That cannot be said in advance.
The CEC said, the cabinet is a high level for us. We received a letter from the cabinet. We answered them. We are at this stage. If they have an opinion or suggestion to us on this matter or what they want to do formally sit down with the secretary of the commission, then our statement will be presented
