BCB gears up for much-hyped election tomorrow

 DHAKA - The 'Board of Directors' election of the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) will be held tomorrow (Wednesday) with 30

contestants vying for 23 directors' post.

     "The preparation for the election is complete," Presiding officer S M
Kabirul Hasan said here today.

     While the councillors will elect 23 directors, two directors will be
nominated by the National Sports Council [NSC]. These 25 elected directors
will later elect a president amongst them, under whose guidance they will run
the country's cricket for the next four years.

     The board earlier this month had formed a five-member election
commission with M Farhad Hussain, FCA, former President Institute of
Chartered Accountants of Bangladesh (ICAB) as Chief Election Commissioner.
The other members of the commission are Omar Faruque, ndc, former Joint
Secretary of the Bangladesh Government, Barrister Muddasir Hossain, Legal
Advisor BCB, Ekramul Hoque, Advocate Bangladesh Supreme Court and former
Deputy Attorney General for Bangladesh and Nizamuddin Chowdhury, CEO BCB .

     However the 171 councillors were finalized for this election and they
will elect 10 directors from category-1 [division and district], 12 directors
from category-2 [Dhaka league clubs] and one director from category-3
[involving public university, former cricketers and government agencies].

     A total of eight directors, all of them from Category-1 had already been
elected unopposed. The councillors mainly will elect the rest of the 15
directors.

     A total of 16 would contest for the 12 directors' post from Categroy-2
while two will contest from Categroy-3 for one director post.

     Incumbent BCB president Nazmul Hassan will contest from their category-
2.

     Apart from Nazmul, who is councilor from Abahani Limited, Gazi Golam
Murtaza, Najib Ahmed, Mahbubul Anam, Masuduzzaman, Obeid Rashid Nizam,Saiful
Islam Bhuiyan, Md. Salahuddin Chowdhury, Muhammad Ismail Haider Mallick, Md.
Enayet Hossain, Fahim Sinha, Iftekhar Rahman, Manzur Kader, Mohammad Abdur
Rahman, Shawkat Aziz Russell, Mohammad Rafiqul Islam and Md. Manzur Alam
Manzu will contest from Category-2.

     A total of 57 councilors from the Dhaka clubs will exercise their vote
to elect those 12 directors.

     In category-1 there will be election in Dhaka and Rajshahi Division with
three BCB councillors - Tanvir Ahmed (Titu), Naimur Rahman Durjoy and Syed
Asfaqul Islam (Titu) fighting for two posts in Dhaka Division while Khaled
Mashud Pilot and Saiful Alam Swapon Chowdhury would battle for one post from
Rajshahi Division.

     Khalid Hossain who submitted his nomination to contest in Dhaka Division
later withdrew him from the election but his name will be in ballot paper,
said Kabirul Hasan, explaining that he backed out from the election after the
last date of the withdrawal of the nomination paper.

     Meanwhile, in Category-3 Khaled Mahmud Sujon and Nazmul Abedin Fahim
will be fighting for one post. 43 councillors from this category will vote to
elect one.

     "A total of 127 voters will exercise their votes. Even though the voters
were 171, the rest of the voters won't get the chance to vote since the
candidates from the divisions were elected unopposed. A total of 57 voters
had voted through E-vote and postal ballot," Kabirul informed.

     "But the E-vote and postal ballot will be opened after the election
tomorrow, when we would start the counting," he added.

     This is the first time, the BCB introduced postal ballot and E-votes for
their election.

     It will be the seventh BCB elections. Earlier the election was held in
1998, 2001, 2005, 2009, 2013 and 2017. While BCB president was used to be
nominated by government in the past, in the last two elections (2013 and
2017), BCB president was elected as per the ICC guidelines. The board of directors in fact elects the BCB president.BSS