A long standing dispute on the demarcation of area of Dohar Municipality of Dhaka has been resolved.
A cabinet meeting on the National Implementation Committee for Administrative Reorganization approved the decision of demarcation of areas on Monday, informed Dohar Upazila administration.
People of Dohar upazila have thanked the Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and local MP, Adviser to the PM Salman F Rahman for resolving the long-standing area demarkation dispute.
It is learnt, due to dispute regarding area, holding of elections of Doahr upazila and some unions under Dohar upazila remained suspended for nearly 20-year.
People of Dohar Municipality informed, some vested quarters including political leaders were creating repeated complicated situations by filing cases and putting allegations regarding demarcation of areas aiming at getting illegal facilities by blocking the holding of the Municipality elections.
As a result, people of the municipality remained deprived of the right of their franchise for the last 20-year. The decision taken by the meeting of NICAR regarding the resolution of the dispute is likely to regain the civic-rights of the people and to remove the bottlenecks of development of the area, opined local people.
Election Office sources informed the first election was held on 26 September 2000 with the voters of Purana Joypara unition, Raipara, Sutarpara nd Mahmudpur unions.
Afterwards, several cases were filed regarding the dispute of areas and of the voter-list. Later, just three day before the announcement of the schedule of the elections in 2013, two persons filed a writ petition with the High Court over the area demarcation and the holding of elections was suspended.
However, the plaintiffs of the cases withdrew the cases in 2019 and the High Court directed the concerned authorities to hold Municipality Elections within 90-day period.
Following the directives from the High Court, the Election Commission took the decision to hold the Municipality Elections on October-14 the same year.
According to the election schedule, the last date of submission of Nomination Paper was on September-12, the sorting and withdrawal date of nomination papers were on September-15 and 20 respectively and the allocation of election symbol was on September-21.
However, after completing all formalities duly to hold the elections on October-14, no election was held.
Dohar Upazila Nirbahi Officer Feroz Mahmud said, a meeting of NICAR approved a proposal regarding expansion and reduction of areas of Dohar Municipality on Monday.