Dhaka: Candidates of the upcoming Union Council elections will not be allowed to begin canvassing before the polls symbols are officially allocated.

The Election Commission has incorporated the provision at the proposed Union Council election code of conduct for preventing the recurrence of disparities created between the political party-backed and the independent contestants in the recently held municipal polls.

The Commission finalised the proposed code of conduct last week, which will be sent to the Law Ministry this week for its vetting, said EC Secretary Sirazul Islam.

‘As per the proposed UC election code of conduct, all candidates, including political party-nominated chairman candidates and independent chairman contestants, will have to kick off their electioneering after polls symbols are officially distributed,’ he told UNB on Friday.

According to the existing code of conduct, the electioneering in favour of any candidate cannot be started three weeks before the balloting. But election symbols are usually assigned 14-15 days before the election date.

During the last municipal polls, candidates kicked off their campaigns on December 9, five days before the polls symbols were officially distributed leading to a disparity among mayoral candidates.

Political party-nominated mayoral candidates had the scope to conduct campaign with their respective party symbols for five more days than independent mayoral ones, who had to wait for symbols till December 14.

Following the disparity, the EC has changed the provision of inception of electioneering in the UP election, which is likely to begin at the end of March next.

With the change, candidates will get only 15-16 days instead of the existing 20 for conducting election campaigns.

Besides, chairmen of the Upazila Council can participate in the electioneering in the UP election as per the proposed election code of conduct.

But the chairmen cannot use state facilities and government staff during their engagement in election activity and campaign.

The Commission brought some changes in the proposed code of conduct as the Union Council election was made partisan through a recent amendment to the Local Government (Union Council) Act 2009.

Subsequently, the EC will finalise the code of conduct through publishing it in official gazette after the Law Ministry’s vetting.