I was not at all surprised to see that the National Democratic Institute's (NDI) survey report claims 1.22 crore excess or duplicate voters in the latest voter list, 2.5% eligible citizens (I can't address them as voters!) are out of the present list. Naturally, the BNP has denied the fact while the Awami League took it as a proof in their favour. But it's not only a matter of BNP and Awami League. Every citizen of Bangladesh has his/ her right to exercise voting power. So I think it's the headache of the 14 crore people of Bangladesh to have a free, fair and credible parliamentary election. But an acceptable voter list with minimized error is one of the most important prerequisites for the election. It is the duty of the Election Commission to provide us with a transparent voter list, but the EC has failed to do that. Now the Acting (!) CEC is urging the NDI team to specify the faults of the voter list (The Daily Star, Dec. 04 ,2006) ! What a shame for us! I think still we have sufficient time to correct the voter list. For that purpose they can take a massive plan to deploy a huge number of workers who are readily available. For each upazila they can form a committee consisting of 3 members- the UNO and two representatives of the BNP and the AL. They will supervise the whole campaign accordingly. While appointing any personnel to collect information about eligible voters, they should make the decision. As a consequence, controversy can be avoided. This committee will submit their updated list to the authorities within a deadline given by the EC. I think in this way we can achieve a credible voter list for the time being and avoid the present political crisis.Now the most important question is whether this process will solve the problem regarding voter list permanently or not. No. The permanent solution lies in issuing "National ID" for everyone. For that purpose we need to have a central database for the whole population of the country. Each and every citizen's personal information should be stored in that database. The government can launch a project to provide an ID card to each and every citizen having a unique identification number. Using that card everyone will be able to log into the central database system or any other allowed government resources. No possibility of duplication as each ID number will correspond to a unique fingerprint.
The question may arise where the funding will come from. If the govt. can't bear the expenses of the proposed project they should ask for help from the businessmen. Yes! They will give us money. The reason is very simple. Just we have to make them understand that how much loss did they face due to political chaos in the last few weeks! Moreover we have our development partners who can help us. And one more thing, this project can be managed by our own manpower, own knowledge with the help of Information Technology.
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