Many would remember that during the previous BNP regime, a District Minister post was created through a notification. A case was filed against this in the High Court and in their judgment Justice Khairul Haq and Justice Fazle Kabir quashed this notification and declared it unconstitutional for Members of Parliament to contest local elections as it violates the secession policy. Happened. [Anwar Hossain Manju vs Bangladesh 16BLT (HCD)(2008)],
However, in violation of the Constitution, during the government of this ruling party, Members of Parliament were made advisors to the Upazila Parishad and were allocated millions of taka for local development. In a democratic state, republican employees are supposed to work under elected representatives, but our field level officials ignore the Constitution and control local government institutions. Also, local government institutions currently have extremely limited resources and workforce, which has made these institutions ineffective.
It is clear that at present our election system has collapsed. Our election system has gone into exile. Our local government institutions, including the Upazila Parishad, have also become ineffective due to undue interference.
The main ailment is the fragile electoral system and ineffective Upazila Parishad and its symptom is voter disinterest. Therefore if the disease is to be truly cured, the bias and partiality of the Election Commission and other institutions involved in elections must be eliminated and necessary measures must be taken to make the Upazila Parishad functional.
* Badiul Alam Majumdar is the secretary, Shushahonor Jonno Nagorik (Shujaan)
*This column appeared in the online edition of Prothom Alo and has been rewritten for the English edition by Ayesha Kabir.