Election Commission to Lock in Union Parishad Poll Calendar on Monday

Dhaka — Bangladesh's Election Commission will set the dates and phases of the long-delayed Union Parishad elections on Monday, turning a months-long planning exercise into a formal schedule.

Election Commissioner Abul Fazal Md Sanaullah said at the commission's Agargaon headquarters on Thursday that the dates would be fixed at a commission meeting. Talks with political parties will follow only after that calendar is settled, so parties argue over a published timetable rather than a draft.

The announcement matters because the local-government backlog is large. Bangladesh has about 4,580 union parishads. No local polls have been held for more than two years, and the terms of a large share of those bodies have already expired. Under the law, a union election is due within 180 days before a parishad's term ends. Commission figures earlier this year suggested more than 3,600 unions were already eligible by the end of August, with hundreds more becoming due by December. Roughly 100 parishads remain stuck — most over court cases, others over boundary disputes or voter-list problems — and are expected to be parked in later phases.

A working plan floated in mid-September sketched seven phases, opening on 12 November and closing on 27 May 2027, with intermediate rounds in December, January, February and April. The first wave was drawn to cover unions in about 80 upazilas across 63 districts, leaving Thakurgaon aside because of a parliamentary by-election there. That sketch was never a formal notification. On 17 September, Sanaullah said the commission wanted the local polls, and the union elections in particular, finished before 6 June next year. Asked on Thursday whether that window still held, he said the commission hoped to complete every phase inside the timeframe it had already set.

The path to Monday has not been straight. After the September outline, government officials told the commission that voting this year would be hard to staff: school exams crowd November and December, police said they needed until around December to finish election training, and Ramadan plus the SSC calendar squeeze early 2026. Sanaullah at the time described the seven dates as a possible schedule from a preparatory meeting, not a decision. Monday is when that distinction is meant to end.

Once the dates are out, the commission is expected to brief parties and then issue the formal election notification. Polling materials left over from the national election are largely in place, though officials have said extra centres will be needed. All unions inside an upazila are to vote on the same day.

For the BNP government, the union polls are the first nationwide electoral test since it took office. For Jamaat-e-Islami and smaller parties, they are the first chance to measure strength at the level where most political organisation actually sits. Monday's meeting will not settle those contests. It will decide when they begin.