Reserved seat nomination today

Women candidates will start filing nominations for the 50 parliament seats reserved for them on Sunday. A single contestant for each of the seats has already been nominated by parties based on their strength in Parliament. Earlier on Jan 5, 300 MPs were directly elected in the parliamentary election. Unlike that election, these fifty women lawmakers will be elected indirectly. According to Election Commission (EC), Sunday is the last day for submitting nominations. Candidates or their representatives will have to submit the nominations to the Returning Officer between 9am and 5pm. Scrutiny of the nomination papers will begin on Mar 11 and Mar 18 is the last date for withdrawal of nominations. However, each party in the House has announced their candidates as per their quota based on the seat strength in Parliament. But Apr 3 has been set as the date for polls for these 50 seats. Once elected, these MPs will be sworn in within three days of the elections. Based on their strengths in the House, ruling Awami League looks set to bag 39 seats, Workers Party 1, Jatiya Samajtantarik Dal (JaSaD) 1, Jatiya Party 6 and independent MPs 3. The parties have already nominated as many candidates for 50 seats. This is the first time independent MPs are getting three women seats reserved in Parliament after they formed an alliance, according to bdnews24.com.