Ahead of January 5 parliamentary polls, the army will be deployed tomorrow (Thursday) covering 59 of 64 districts in the country as
striking force to make the atmosphere election-friendly. As per the December 20 decision of the Election Commission, the army will keep
vigil till January 9 in aid of the civil administration to conduct election in 146 constituencies out of the 300. During the
electioneering, five districts — Shariatpur, Madaripur, Chandpur, Joypurhat and Rajbari — do not require deployment of army as all the
candidates in those constituencies are set to be elected unopposed due to single candidature. However, the government can call out the army
in those five districts as well to maintain law and order, if deemed necessary. The number of army personnel is being determined
depending on the field-level requisition. Each of the districts has the number of army as per the demand of the district-level law and
order coordination committee. On December 22, the Election Commission formally sent a letter to the Armed Forces Division to
deploy army from December 26 to January 9 to maintain law and order before, during and after the January-5 general election. In the
letter, it was stated that the Election Commission took the decision to deploy army personnel alongside law enforcing agencies in line with
article 126 of the Constitution in a bid to hold the election in a fair, free, neutral and peaceful manner. The army will take position
as strike force at nodal points (convenient places to move) in each district, upazila and metropolitan areas. The members of the armed
forces will work mainly to ensure safe traffic movement on the highways and important roads, and maintain the law and order
situation, EC sources said. Besides, the army personnel will help the Commission to perform its election related works. There will be
an executive magistrate with each team of the army during operation as the strike force. An EC official told UNB on Wednesday that the
number of the army members is determined as per requisition from returning officers in the districts. In the 10th parliamentary
elections, the Election Commission does not need to arrange vote-casting in 154 parliamentary constituencies which have got single
candidates who are set to be elected unopposed. As many as 386 candidates and 12 out of the 40 registered political parties are
taking part in the electoral race in the rest 146 constituencies.
The duration of the army deployment was five to seven days in all the previous general elections since 1973 other than the 1996 February
one-sided polls. In the 1996 February election, the army was deployed for 20 days, and in 2006 the army was also fielded on January
9 before the scrapped January 22 election. – UNB
