Chief election commissioner (CEC) Kazi Habibul Awal has said the commission has not taken the suggestions of the political parties into their consideration in the decision-making of the EVM use.
He also said the principal consideration was how to ensure a fair election.
The CEC came up with this claim on Wednesday while talking to newsmen at the Nirbachan Bhaban. Earlier on Tuesday, the commission decided to use Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) at maximum of 150 constituencies in the next parliamentary election.
Kazi Habibul Awal said, ‘We ourselves decided to use EVM. The EC will handle the election, not the political parties."
The CEC said "We have taken the matter of those, who will come to the voting centre to exercise their franchises, into consideration. The decision has been taken after a long discussion over the issue. The demands of the political parties have not taken into consideration. But their remarks were taken into consideration."
"We have not taken any decision hurriedly over using EVM. From the outset, we told that we were trying to examine the reliability of EVM. We took opinions from different parties and technical experts. Following that we decided to use EVM at a maximum of 150 constituencies in the next parliamentary election,” he added.
When asked about the apprehension of the crisis over the decision of casting votes in EVM, Habibul Awal said, "Let's wait to see what crisis is going to happen. We are not capable of predicting whether there will be any crisis in the next national parliamentary election."