EC unveils roadmap for 2024 general election

The next general election will be held by January 29, 2024 using Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) in 150 constituencies out of 300 across the country, according to a roadmap published by the Election Commission.

This was revealed at a function held at the auditorium of the Nirbachan Bhaban on Wednesday.

The roadmap includes the challenges of holding a fair election, what the EC should do to deal with those, review the activities of the political parties, increasing the use of technology in election.

“17 parties out of 29 ones who participated in the recent dialogue gave their opinion in favour of using EVM while 12 of them voted against it. The Commission thinks that it will be rational to use EVM as most of the political parties want it. The use of EVM in 150 constituencies will be rational for balancing the opinion of all parties,” said Election Commissioner Ahsan Habib Khan.

He delivered the keynote speech as the chief guest in the absence of the CEC.

Ahsan also said the election has to be held by January 24, 2024 as per the constitution.

Delimitation of constituencies

The roadmap says that a new policy will be made in January, 2023 to redefine the boundaries of the parliamentary constituencies. On the basis of which the Geographical Information System will be discussed with the relevant institutions and experts and the draft of the constituencies will be published in March, 2023. The revised delimitation of 300 constituencies will be gazetted in June after objections to the draft are settled in May.

Electoral roll

The action plan informs that updates are currently in progress. The updated list will be released on March 2, 2023. With the announcement of the parliamentary election schedule, the voter list of 300 constituencies will be published.

Polling stations

The Election Commission plans to set up 42,000 polling stations. In this case, the work will be undertaken in June 2023.

The draft will be published in July and the objections will be settled on the draft in August. After that, the Election Commission will publish the gazette of the polling stations 25 days before the polling.

Inspection of parties

The process of reviewing the activities of the registered political parties will begin this September. In this case, after reviewing all the information, the Election Commission will decide which parties’ registration will be maintained in May 2023. The final list of registered parties will be published in June of the same year. Before this, registration of new parties will be announced in May.