Election CommissionBangladesh Nationalist Party has no candidates in three constituencies despite the party’s fielding of 696 aspirants against 295 of 300 parliamentary seats before completing seat sharing with partners.
Returning officers on Sunday rejected around 80 candidates of the BNP-led 20-party alliance, its leaders alleged.
However, no major candidate of ruling Awami League lost candidature in the election commission’s scrutiny.
Rather, some of the AL’s rebel candidates were denied opportunity to contest the polls, according to reports from different districts.
The current election commission has made the highest record in Bangladesh history of rejecting nomination papers of the candidates.
Candidature of as many as 786 candidates out of 3065 who submitted nomination papers for contesting the 11th parliamentary polls, was declared illegal on a variety of grounds, but the opposition candidates termed the EC’s measures politically motivated.
In the 9th parliamentary elections held in 2008, a total of 557 aspirants’ nomination papers were cancelled. The number of candidates was 2456 in that year.
The election commission will dispose of the appeals to be filed against the cancellation upon hearing within the next three days — 6-8 December, said EC joint secretary Farhad Ahammad Khan.
Some big names of BNP and opposition alliance Jatiya Oikya Front are in the list of 786 candidates whose candidature was declared invalid.
BNP chief Khaleda Zia’s all three nomination papers were declared invalid as the former premier is sentenced in graft cases. The BNP filed nomination papers for Khaleda in Feni-1, Bogura-6 and Bogura-7 constituencies.
President of Krishak Sramik Janata League (KSJL), a component of opposition coalition Jatiya Oikya Front, Abdul Kader Siddiqui also faced the same consequence as his nomination papers for contesting polls from Tangail 1 and 4 constituencies were cancelled.
Those whose candidature was declared invalid include BNP leader Amanullah Aman in Dhaka-2, Mir Nasiruddin in Chattogram-5 , Mirza Abbas’s wife Afroza Abbas in Dhaka-9, Gias Quader Chowdhury in Chattogram-2 and 7, Selim Bhuiyan in Dhaka-5, Aminul Haque in Rajshahi-1, Aslam Chowdhury in Chattogram-4, Ruhul Quddus Talukder Dulu in Natore-2, M Rashiduzzaman Millat in Jamalpur-1 and Golam Mowla Rony in Patuakhali-3, who recently joined the BNP to contest from the party.
Nomination form of Reza Kibria, son of former Awami League government’s finance minister Shah SM Kibria, who recently joined Gano Forum, who was an aspirant of Jatiya Oikya Front from Habiganj-1, was also declared invalid.
The ruling AL did not face any such trouble as no major candidate of the party was declared invalid during the scrutiny on Sunday.
However, the AL’s ally Jatiya Party secretary general ABM Ruhul Amin Hawlader’s nomination paper for contesting the polls from Patuakhali-1 was cancelled.
The scrutiny has left the BNP and Jatiya Oikya Front alliance without any candidates in three constituencies.
Neither the BNP nor its alliance partner has any candidates left in Dhaka-1, Manikganj-2 and Bagura-7 constituencies as nominations of all the candidates of the party were cancelled in those seats.
The BNP fielded more than one candidate in almost all constituencies as many of its probable candidates were either implicated in what it called fictitious cases or convicted in various cases.
The BNP is yet to finalise its seat-sharing with the alliance partners – 20 parties and the new coalition of Jatiya Oikya Front (National Unity Front).
The last date for the withdrawal of candidature is 9 December and the electoral symbols will be allocated on 10 December.
Source: The Prothom Alo.
