The Election Commission is likely to announce before Eid-ul-Fitr the schedule for the by-election to Gazipur-4 parliamentary constituency while it was planning to hold the polls by September.
Aspiring candidates from both the ruling Awami League and the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party have, meanwhile, started conducting mass contact to mobilise popular support in their respective favour. 
The parliamentary constituency fell vacant on July 7 when ruling AL lawmaker Tanjim Ahmed, better known as Sohel Taj, resigned as a Member of Parliament announcing that he would no longer be active in politics.
‘The commission will have to announce the election schedule before the Eid-ul-Fitr,’ chief election commissioner Kazi Rakibuddin Ahmad told reporters at the EC secretariat after a commission meeting on Wednesday.
The CEC said the commission was making preparations to hold the by-polls and said the election will be held within the stipulated time.
Election commissioner Shah Nawaz on Tuesday told New Age that the commission was planning to organise the by-polls by September.
Asked about the elections to the newly-formed Rangpur City Corporation polls, the CEC said the commission was also making progress to hold the city polls.
In response to another question, he said the Rangpur city polls will be held with the updated voters’ roll and the commission has already initiated the task of updating voters’
roll there.
‘And the LGRD ministry has also begun delimitation work of the wards of the new city corporation,’ he added.
The CEC also said the Gazipur by-polls will be held with the existing
voters’ roll.
When a questioner drew his attention to a media report that different government and non-government agencies were harassing people asking them to show national ID card as many are yet to get the card, the CEC said, ‘We have written to the authorities concerned so that the use of national identity cards is not made compulsory.’
Meanwhile, New Age Gazipur correspondent reported that aspiring candidates from both the ruling and opposition political camps have begun electioneering by visiting from door to door to woo
the voters.
From the main opposition BNP, its standing committee member ASM Hannan Shah began the campaign while a local leader of BNP’s main ally Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami, SM Sanaullah, has also shown interests to run in the election.
Besides, several aspiring candidates from the ruling AL have already begun campaigning and were seeking the blessings and votes of the local people.
They are: AL’s central working committee member Mamatazuddin Mehdi, Krishak League general secretary Motahar Hossain Mollah, Sohel Taj’s uncle Afsaruddin Khan, also a former AL lawmaker, and a former Chhatra League leader Amanat Hossain Khan.