Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) KM Nurul Huda on Monday said there is no scope to backtrack from the decision of using electronic voting machines (EVMs) in the elections to the two Dhaka city corporations as saying all preparations have already been completed.

He made the remarks while talking to reporters after a meeting with BNP leaders at the Nirbachan Bhaban.

The CEC said they are going to use EVMs in the elections to prevent the incidents of snatching ballot boxes and ballots which took place in the past.

He also said there is no scope of setting programming at EVMs beforehand. “No-one can open the machines before 8am and votes can’t be cast after 5pm. The EVM system is not online one, but an offline one. So, there’ll be no problem,” he said.

About the outcome of the meeting, Nurul Huda said they told the BNP leaders that there is scope of rigging votes through EVMs.

He said they will give directives to police very soon not to harass or arrest any candidate unnecessarily.

At the meeting, the six-member BNP delegation formally demanded the Election Commission abandon its decision to use EVMs in the upcoming elections to the two Dhaka city corporations.

They also handed over a letter, signed by their party secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, containing a 21-point demand, to the Election Commission.

Talking to reporters after the meeting, Khosru said, “EVM is nothing but a project of rigging votes automatically and silently without any uproar. The election results depend on EVM’s programming, not on the votes of people.”