Bangladesh voters list has 12 mln false names-report

DHAKA, Dec 2 (Reuters)- Bangladesh's list of voters contains 12.2 million false names, a US-based election monitor said today.

''Bangladesh's voters' list has approximately 12.2 million names which are either in error or are duplicates,'' a report by the Washington-based National Democratic Institute for International Affairs (NDI) said.

A 14-party alliance led by the Awami League of Sheikh Hasina has threatened a nationwide transport blockade, the third in three weeks, from Sunday. It has demanded a recasting of election schedules and an overhaul of voters' lists.

Owen Lippert, the NDI's resident representative in Bangladesh, said his group checked more than 22,000 names across the country and interviewed 11,000 people during a survey of voters ahead of an election set for January 21.

''The (NDI) delegation is deeply concerned that the new voters' list runs to over 93 million names, a size that is substantially inconsistent with the 2001 census data,'' Lippet told a news conference.

''A voters' list containing two-thirds of the population strains credibility.'' Previous blockades have often been violent and at least 40 people have been killed in fighting between rival groups since Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) chief Khaleda Zia ended a five-year term as prime minister in October.

Reaz Rahman, former state minister for foreign affairs and a close Khaleda confidant, said the NDI findings were ''exaggerated because it was based on the 2001 voters' list which was faulty''.

Hasina's political secretary Saber Hossain Chowdhury said ''we have been telling that the 2006 list has 14 million fake voters. The NDI survey largely endorsed our claim''.

Rahman and Chowdhury were at the NDI news conference.

REUTERS PDM KP1720