The Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) is yet to finalise its mayoral candidate for the Dhaka North city corporation elections although the polls campaign kicked off on Tuesday.
The party is still waiting for a reversal of the election commission’s decision that cancelled nomination papers of the BNP chairperson’s advisor Abdul Awal Mintoo as a mayoral aspirant, sources in the party said.
An appeal petition filed by Mintoo challenging Monday’s High Court judgement upholdinhg the commission’s decision of rejecting his candidature is scheduled to be heard by the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court on Thursday.
If Mintoo’s candidature is not declared valid, his son Tabith Awal may preferrably get the blessing from the party, some leaders of the BNP said.
However, they are still focussed on Mintoo, hoping a reversal of the decision.
A section of the BNP leaders is also thinking of supporting the secretary general of Bikalpa Dhara, Mahi B Chowdhury.
Mahi, in a press conference on Wednesday, sought support from all nationalist forces.
He, however, claimed that he did not lobby with anyone in the BNP for support from the major party.
A section in the BNP is also strongly against supporting Mahi for the mayoral race as some of the senior BNP leaders have negative attitude towards him.
The BNP has no other leader in the mayoral race for Dhaka North as the party wholeheartedly decided to support the BNP chief’s advisor Mintoo.
Mintoo’s son Tabith Awal received the commission’s endorsement as a valid mayoral candidate even after state-run Sonali Bank termed him a loan defaulter.
Some alleged that Mintoo intentionally committed the mistake to keep his son in the race.
Sources in the party said Tabith Awal and his mother Nasrin Awal was called by BNP chairperson Khaleda Zia on Monday night where the BNP chief admonished Tabith for his comments in the media where he said he would not participate in the elections.
Tabith was asked to be prepared to participate in the elections.
After coming out from the BNP chief’s residence, Tabith told Prothom Alo that no political discussion took place in their meeting and they came to meet Khaleda Zia as she returned home after a long time.
Source: Prothom Alo
