BNP on Sunday completed the process to nominate its candidates to contest the 11th parliamentary elections with the distribution of its final letters among the selected aspirants for constituencies in capital Dhaka.
The candidates of different constituencies in Dhaka, including Khondokar Abu Ashfaq (Dhaka-1) and Nabiullah Nabi (Dhaka-5), collected the letters from BNP chairperson’s Gulshan office.
Though former foreign minister Morshed Khan got back his candidature, BNP dropped him and nominated its district unit leader Abu Sufiyan for Chattogram-8 seat.
However, Nadim Mostafa, whose candidature restored by the Election Commission, was given nomination for Rajshahi-5 constituency. Meanwhile, ex-Mayor of Dhaka Sadeque Hossain Khoka’s son Ishraque Hossain visited the BNP chief’s office and announced to stay away from the election as BNP shared Dhaka-6 seat with Gano Forum’s executive president Subrata Chowdhury.
“I’ve accepted the party’s decision and decided to quit the race in the interest of unity and democracy” Ishraque told reporters.
He said he will work hard to ensure the victory of Subrata Chowdhury in his fathers’ seat.
Officials at Khaleda’s Gulshan office said they sent the list of 299 candidates of the ‘Sheaf of Paddy’ to the EC, urging it to allocate the party’s electoral symbol among them.
The party did not send the name of LDP chairman Col (retd) Oli Ahmed as he has chosen to use his own party’s symbol ‘Umbrella’ in Chattogram-14 seat.
Except Oli Ahmed, all the candidates of BNP and alliance partners under Jatiya Oikyafront and 20-party, are going to contest the December-30 general election with ‘Sheaf of Paddy’.
Even four candidates of Oli’s party LDP will be there in the election race with Sheaf of Paddy.
Meanwhile several hundred supporters of BNP’s Munshiganj-1 aspirant Sheikh Abdullah and Cumilla-4 hopeful Manjurul Ahsan Munshi staged demonstration in front of the party chairperson’s Gulshan office as the two leaders were not given party tickets.
BNP picked its vice-chairman Shah Moazzem Hossain for contesting Munshiganj-1 constituency while Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal General Secretary Abdul Malek Ratan was chosen to fight for Cumilla-4 on behalf of the Jatiya Oikyafront.
