The new schedule will be announced sometime today through a gazette notification, ten days after the surreptitiously hasty announcement of the current schedule.

"The election commission will refix the poll schedule in its tomorrow's meeting," a press release issued by the EC Secretariat disclosed yesterday, apparently clearing the clouds regarding holding of the next parliamentary election by January 25.

The EC finally took the decision following a negotiation between the caretaker government and Awami League (AL)-led 14-party coalition on a package proposal offered by the council of advisers. AL-led 14-party has been demanding scrapping of the current election schedule since its announcement.

As part of the package deal, sending two controversial election commissioners -- SM Zakaria and Modabbir Hossain Chowdhury -- on leaves of absence is under way and a decision is likely to come today, sources said. Appointment of new election commissioners is also likely to be completed today, the sources added.

In another development, 14-party coalition that has been demanding cancellation of the updated voter list, decided yesterday evening to direct its grassroots level leaders and activists to register their names on the voter list and to assist the EC staff in detecting fake voters on the list.

Earlier in the afternoon, a delegation of 14- party met a team of advisers in the state guesthouse Padma and reiterated their five point demands. Emerging from the meeting, the advisers rushed to Bangabhaban to apprise the president of the outcome of the talk and sat in a council meeting in the evening, which ended at 10:00pm.

Information Adviser Mahbubul Alam told reporters after the meeting, "We hope that the negotiations with the political parties will come to a positive conclusion tomorrow. We also hope that steps to reconstitute the Election Commission will be taken by tomorrow."

The caretaker government yesterday transferred some high level secretaries as part of the package deal wooing 14-party to participate in the polls.

About rescheduling the election, sources in the EC Secretariat hinted that the dates for completion of different stages of the electoral process including filing of applications for candidacies, scrutiny of those and the polling date, will be re-fixed.

According to the previously announced official election schedule, December 10 is the last date for filing applications for candidacies, while December 11 is the date for scrutiny of the applications by returning officers. The deadline for withdrawal of candidatures is December 19. The EC sources said, the new election schedule will add on an average ten days to each of the earlier dates, and will defer the polling date by one or two days.

"The date for polling is likely to be deferred by one or two days from the earlier date of January 21," a senior official of the EC Secretariat told The Daily Star. "The date of polling may be fixed for January 23,'' he said.

The EC now hopes the new schedule will end the crisis and will also help the move to correct the mistakes on the updated voter list, the field level task of which will start on Friday.

While leaving his office in the late evening yesterday, acting Chief Election Commissioner Justice Mahfuzur Rahman, who had declined to talk about an election schedule on November 27, however told reporters this time that he will talk to the media about refixing the election schedule today.

After a late night consultation with the president, the EC in a surreptitious and hasty move on November 27 morning announced the current election schedule pushing the country into further political turmoil.

Awami League (AL)-led 14-party coalition and some other political parties rejected the election schedule outright and launched a boisterous movement demanding cancellation of the schedule while BNP-led four-party alliance kept demanding holding of the election as par the announced schedule.

Finally, the council of advisers initiated a move to resolve the crisis on Friday and after holding a series of meetings with the political parties they came up with a package proposal on Sunday that includes rearranging the election schedule, reconstitution of the EC, correction of the voter list and transfer of some secretaries.