FE Report
A total of 4,580 aspirants have collected nomination forms of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) to contest the upcoming 11th parliamentary election.
BNP senior joint secretary general Ruhul Kabir Rizvi revealed this to journalists on Saturday at a press briefing held at the party's Nayapaltan central office in the city.
However, the BNP leader did not divulge the number of nomination papers submitted so far, though the deadline for submission ended at 9:00pm on Friday.
Meanwhile, the party is set to start interviewing its nomination aspirants today (Sunday) at BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia's Gulshan office.
"Right now, I can't tell the actual number of nomination papers submitted as the submission process is yet to end," he said replying to a query.
Responding to another question whether BNP will boycott the upcoming national polls, Mr Rizvi said, "There is no such rumour, BNP has decided to contest the election."
Besides, he urged the Election Commission (EC) to use its constitutional powers to refrain the ruling party from violating electoral code of conduct.
Beginning today (Sunday), the interview session will continue for four days till November 21.
The interview will be taken by the party's parliamentary board which is consisted of the members of the party's national standing committee.
BNP will take interview of the nomination seekers for the constituencies under Rangpur division (9:00am to 1:30pm) and Rajshahi division (from 2:30pm) on the first day.
Nomination aspirants of Barishal (9:00am to 1:30pm) and Khulna divisions (from 2:30pm) will face the BNP parliamentary board the following day.
On November 20, potential candidates of Chattogram division (9:00am to 1:30pm), Cumilla (proposed) and Sylhet divisions (from 2:30pm) will meet top BNP leaders.
Interview of the nomination seekers of the constituencies under Mymensingh and Faridpur (proposed) divisions (9:00am to 1:30pm) will be taken on the last day.
Nomination aspirants of Dhaka division constituencies will also be interviewed on the same day from 2:30pm.
BNP started nomination paper sale at its Nayapaltan central office on November 12 which was scheduled to continue till November 14 but the deadline was extended by two more days till 9:00pm of November 16.
The extension came after deferral of the election date to December 30 from December 23 by the Election Commission (EC) upon demand by several political parties and alliances.
Of the total 4,580 forms, 1,326 were sold on the first day on Monday while 1,896 on Tuesday, 488 on Wednesday and 402 and 468 on Friday.
UNB adds: BNP earned Tk 22.9 million (Tk 2.29 crore) over the five days by selling the 4,580 nomination forms.
The nomination seekers had to pay Tk 5,000 to buy each form while Tk25,000 during submission.
The commission has fixed November 28 as the deadline for nomination paper submission, December 02 for scrutiny and December 09 as the last date for nomination form withdrawal.
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