Election commissioner Sohul Hossain on Wednesday said the second amendment to the Representation of People Order was brought to bring BNP under the purview of registration. BNP secretary general Khandaker Delwar Hossain on Tuesday alleged that the provision for cancellation of registration was meant to keep BNP out of registration. He termed the second amendment motivated and conspiratorial.

Parliament on Monday passed the new electoral laws with the provision that a political party will lose registration if it does not submit its amended final constitution by the the deadline. "With this law passed, political parties got one year instead of six months to submit their permanent constitutions to the Election Commission. If any political party fails to submit its amended constitution by Jan 25, 2010, the Election Commission can cancel its registration," it added.

Six parties including the BNP did not submit their amended party constitutions to the EC by July 25 deadline. Hossain said on Tuesday, "BNP's allegation is not correct. Time has been extended so that the parties can submit their constitution with the Commission. "It is not cancellation of the registration; rather, the amendment intends to bring them under purview of the registration."

Delwar alleged, "Despite being aware of the BNP national council to be held on December 8, the government passed the second amendment of the RPO. "On the one hand, we are preparing to hold the council and, on the other, the government is conspiring to foil the BNP council. "The caretaker government, the army and the force behind conspired a lot to disintegrate the BNP. Awami League was involved with it. They also passed a law in parliament in this regard."

Last month, chief election commissioner A T M Shamsul Huda told a function in Feni that the EC planned to hold all the municipal elections on one day and elections to union parishads in six division in six days by the end of July. The number of municipalities is over 300 and Union Parishads is about 4,500.

-bdnews