Residents of different parliamentary constituencies on Friday staged demonstrations protesting the Election Commission’s reallocation of parliamentary areas ahead of the 13th parliamentary elections.
They urged the authorities to retain the constituencies as before.
The EC on Thursday published a revised list of constituencies for the 13th national election, adjusting the boundaries of the 300 constituencies.
According to the EC data, an additional seat was added to Gazipur, making a total of six constituencies, while the number of seats in Bagerhat was reduced from four to three.
Additionally, changes have been made to the boundaries of a total of 42 parliamentary constituencies, including 8 in Dhaka. The upcoming national parliamentary elections will be held under these new boundaries.
In protest, locals of Faridpur district on Friday blocked Dhaka-Khulna and Faridpur-Barishal highways to protest the EC’s reallocation of constituencies ahead of the general election scheduled to be held in February next year.
The protest erupted following the publication of a gazette redesigning Bhanga upazila’s Algi and Hamirdi unions from the Faridpur-4 constituency to the Faridpur-2 constituency.
Opposing the merging of any parliamentary area with another, they called for retaining the five parliamentary constituencies of Faridpur as before.
The locals blocked the highways at Mansurabad and Hamirdi bus stand areas by felling trees. As a result, traffic on both the Faridpur-Barishal and Dhaka-Khulna highways came to a halt.
Bhanga Highway Police Officer-in-Charge (OC) Rokibuzzaman, said local residents blocked the entry points of two highways at Bhanga Golchattar.
“This has caused a heavy gridlock. We are present at the scene and trying to restore normalcy, but the protesters have not yet cleared the highways,” he told reporters.
The Election Commission on 30 July published the draft for 300 constituencies, bringing some changes to constituencies of 64 districts, setting each constituency with at least 4.20 lakh voters.
As the decision sparked outcry in many areas, the EC, diving the country into four regions, heard some 1,900 objections on 84 constituencies.
On the first day of hearing on August 24, two rival groups of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party and National Citizen Party locked in a scuffle on the proposed boundary demarcation on Brahmanbaria-2 and Brahmanbaria-3 constituencies.
From August 24 to 27, the commission held four consecutive days of hearings on claims, objections, and applications regarding the proposed constituency boundaries. After the hearings, the EC Secretary stated that a total of 1,893 objections were filed.