Bangladesh News

Finally, BNP appears to have violated electoral laws and its own constitution to pick contenders in the upcoming parliamentary polls by not allowing grassroots level leaders of the party to make preliminary selection of candidates.

Keeping the grassroots party committees in the dark, BNP Parliamentary Board (BNPPB) last night almost finalised party nominees by interviewing those who submitted applications seeking nomination on Tuesday and Wednesday.

But the Representation of People Order (RPO) does not allow political parties to nominate parliamentary polls candidates without having grassroots committees’ recommendations in this regard.

As per the RPO, members of ward, union, thana, upazila and district committees of BNP were supposed to jointly prepare panels of prospective candidates for the constituencies concerned. And the BNPPB was supposed to finalise nominees from the panels.

BNP incorporated the mandatory RPO provision in its constitution to qualify for registration with the Election Commission (EC). And such registration is a must for parties to be eligible to contest parliamentary polls.

The much-talked-about electoral reforms made by the caretaker government empowered political parties’ grassroots leaders to make primary selection of polls contenders from parliamentary constituencies mainly to stop nomination business, sources mentioned.

The parties now have jurisdictions to pick candidates only from panels prepared by their grassroots committees.

If a political party violates the mandatory RPO provision, the EC is empowered to cancel its registration.

BNP started selling nomination forms on Tuesday. Of the 3,186 forms sold, 2,063 were submitted by nomination seekers with a deposit of Tk 20, 000 each.

Party central leaders however claimed that they had earlier collected names of prospective candidates from the grassroots through seven organisational teams.

Contacted in the last few days, many grassroots leaders however said they did not send any panels of candidates to the BNPPB.

This has created an awkward situation for the EC, sources said.

The EC at a meeting on Tuesday discussed non-implementation of electoral laws regarding nomination of candidates. But it did not take any decision on violation of the mandatory RPO provision, sources in the EC said.

Meanwhile, Awami League (AL) picked almost all its candidates from grassroots panels, and criticised the EC’s silence over BNP’s violation of electoral laws. It accused the EC of ‘favouring’ a certain party by not enforcing the laws.