Professor Dr. Muhammad Yunus, the chief advisor to the interim government, has emphasized the need to make all-out preparations to counter any internal or external conspiracy to sabotage the upcoming national elections.

He said, "Many forces will work from within and without to sabotage the election. Not small forces, but big forces will try to sabotage it. Attacks may come suddenly. This election will be challenging. No matter how many storms come, we will have to overcome them."

He made this statement at a high-level meeting on preparations for the national elections to be held in February, chaired by the Chief Advisor, at the State Guest House Jamuna on Wednesday.

Shafiqul Alam, press secretary to the chief advisor at the Foreign Service Academy, gave this information to reporters in a briefing after the meeting.

The press secretary said that the chief advisor said in the meeting, 'To make the upcoming elections beautiful and festive, we have to reach out to the people, make them aware of the election policies, polling station rules, how to vote, and what to do if there is chaos anywhere.'

The nearly two-hour meeting mainly discussed four topics - election-time appointments, training, security issues, and monitoring disinformation on social media.

The Press Secretary said that the Ministry of Home Affairs and Public Administration has already started working on the transfer and posting of election officials in different constituencies, considering the importance of the area and the skills of the officials. In addition, the Election Commission has also started providing training to the officials who will be responsible for the elections.

The officials will be prevented from serving in their own district and nearby districts and constituencies if any of their relatives are candidates. The officials who have served in the previous three elections will be prevented. There has been discussion about posting them as soon as possible so that they get enough time to prepare and start the necessary training.

Shafiqul Alam said that in today's meeting, coordination between the government, the Election Commission and various forces regarding the elections was discussed. AI, disinformation and misinformation were discussed at length in the meeting.

He said that a major concern of the meeting was how to quickly debunk any misinformation that spreads on social media. Many times, it is seen that it takes a long time to identify a misinformation and then propagate it as 'misinformation'. During that time, a lot of damage is also done. For this reason, there was a discussion on creating a Central Disinformation Monitoring Cell and a Central Communication Cell.

The Chief Advisor emphasized that fact-checking information should reach people not only at the urban or district level, but also at the village level.

Quoting Professor Yunus, the press secretary said that the chief advisor said, "Propaganda will come on social media. Various propaganda will be carried out in a very planned manner from inside and outside the country to thwart the elections. Pictures and videos will be created and released using AI. This must be dealt with. As soon as a propaganda starts, it must be stopped so that it does not spread."

He said that the Ministry of Information, Ministry of Culture and other ministries have started working on election-focused campaigns.

The meeting was attended by Home Affairs Advisor Lt. Gen. (Retd.) Md. Jahangir Alam Chowdhury, National Security Advisor Dr. Khalilur Rahman, Cultural Advisor Mustafa Sarwar Farooqui, Special Assistant to the Principal Advisor on Defense and National Integration Lt. Gen. (Retd.) Abdul Hafiz, Special Assistant on ICT Affairs Fayez Ahmed Tayyab, Principal Secretary Md. Siraj Uddin Mia, Election Commission Secretary Akhtar Ahmed, Home Secretary Nasimul Gani, Cabinet Secretary Dr. Sheikh Abdur Rashid, PSO Lt. J. Kamrul Hasan, Inspector General of Police Baharul Alam, DG RAB AKM Shahidur Rahman, DG Coast Guard Rear Admiral Ziaul Haque, DG Ansar Major General Abdul Motaleb Sajjad Mahmud and representatives of intelligence agencies NSI, DGFI and SB.