Election Commission is waiting for the government to carry out amendments to the Representation of the People Order, RPO.
Since RPO has not been amended, the EC is not being able to finalise the guideline for the usage of Electric Voting Machines, EVMs and produce electoral manuals.
EC sources say that moving away from RPO amendment, the commission had almost completed other work like voting area demarcation, updating of voters’ list and purchasing of essential equipment.
However, changes were noticed in the ECs position and it suddenly decided to amend RPO and include the clause for the usage of EVMs.
The amendments have been sent to the law ministry to be formed into legislation but this has not been raised in cabinet as yet.
Therefore, this could not be passed in the just concluded 22nd parliamentary session.
Since the PM is In the USA for the UN summit, the amendments may be passed on the third or last week of October, at the concluding session of the tenth parliament.
In case of emergency, this can also be passed through a presidential order.
Once this law is reformed, the EC has plans to use the EVMs in a limited scale for the upcoming elections.
Chief Election Commissioner, CEC, K M Nurul Huda, says: “we will use them machines in a small scale once the amended RPO gets a legal foundation and the machines are found to be faultless.”
Commission sources say that the EC is moving forward with plans to issue electoral schedule by 10 November and hold vote at the end of December.