Staff Correspondent:

Chief Election Commissioner AMM Nasir Uddin said they will strongly urge the government to keep the national identity (NID) services under the Election Commission’s control.

“We will strongly voice our opinions in the law-making process. Wherever opinions are needed, we will give (opinions). Our entire commission wants this,” he said.

The CEC said this while talking to reporters following a sit-in programme of EC employees and officials in front of his office room at the Nirbachan Bhaban in the city.

The EC staff was protesting a fresh move initiated by the current government to enact a law for bringing a number of civic services, including birth registration and national identity registration services, under a single entity named the ‘Civil Registration Commission’.

They also gave a seven-day ultimatum to go on fresh programme unless any visible step is taken to over the issue by March 12.

Nasir Uddin said he did not hear that the government had already finalised its decision to remove the NID operation from the Election Commission rather there have been discussions. “We will inform the government in writing that it should stay under the EC. We will inform the government on an urgent basis,” he said.

Earlier, a meeting of the inter-ministerial committee was held in the Cabinet Division on Monday (March 3) to review the draft of the ‘Civil Registration (Commission) Ordinance, 2025’.

A representative from the EC Secretariat was also present at the additional secretary-level meeting.

In 2023, the previous Awami League government enacted the National Identity Registration Act, 2023 to transfer the national identity registration operation from the Election Commission to the Security Services Division of the Ministry of Home Affairs.

But the Election Commission Secretariat has written to the interim government to repeal the law following the July mass uprising that toppled Sheikh Hasina’s regime.