Staff Reporter :
The High Court (HC) on Thursday disqualified eight candidates including five BNP contenders from contesting the December 30 general election as their resignations from the posts of Upazila Chairmen were not accepted by the government.
The candidates are— Faridul Kabir Talukdar (BNP) for Jamalpur-4, Fazlur Rahman (BNP) for Joypurhat-1, Abdul Majid (BNP) for Jhenidah-2, Mahmud Hasan Suman (Awami League’s rebel and independent) for Mymensingh-8, Abu Sayeed Chan (BNP) for Rajshahi-6, Md Asaduzzaman (Awami League’s rebel and independent) for Rangpur-1, Md Moslem Uddin (BNP) Brahmanbaria-4, and Bashirullah Juru (idependent) for Brahmanbaria-3.
The HC stayed for three months the Election Commission’s decisions that allowed the eight candidates to run in the election. The court also issued separate rules asking the commission and the government to explain in four weeks as to why the decisions should not be declared illegal.
The bench of Justice J B M Hassan and Justice Md Khairul Alam passed the orders and issued the rules following separate writ petitions filed by their rival candidates on separate grounds.
The government did not accept the resignation of the eight as they did not submit their resignation letters to the Ministry concerned and the offices of Deputy Commissioners within the stipulated time before submitting their nomination papers, Advocate Shah Monjurul Hoque, the lawyer for the EC, told the reporters.
The HC passed the orders yesterday in line with the Supreme Court’s directives that disqualified some sitting Upazila Chairmen considering the office is profitable, Advocate Monjurul added.
A total of 19 candidates have been disqualified from contesting the polls following orders from the Appellate and High Court divisions in the last four days.
On Tuesday, the Appellate Division gave orders, disqualifying BNP contenders— M Rashiduzzaman Millat, Tahsina Rushdir Luna and Syed Jahangir Alam— from contesting the polls from Jamalpur-1, Sylhet-2 and Dinajpur-3 Constituencies respectively.
On Monday, eight other BNP candidates lost their candidacy following SC and HC orders.
They are Khondokar Abu Ashfaq for Dhaka-1, Tamiz Uddin for Dhaka-20, Abdul Muhit Talukder for Bogura-3, Sarkar Badal and Morshed Milton for Bogura-7, Nadim Mostafa for Rajshahi-5, Afroza Khan for Manikganj-3 and Abdul Hannan for Chandpur-1.
