Bangladesh News

The government will amend the constitution to stage direct election to reserved seats for women in the House from the next parliamentary polls, LGRD and Cooperatives Minister Syed Ashraful Islam said yesterday.

“We shall amend the constitution to allow women to come to the House through direct election from the next parliamentary polls,” said Ashraful, also the Awami League (AL) spokesperson, after inaugurating the distribution of party nomination forms for reserved seats for women in parliament.

A total of 188 party nomination aspirants collected forms on the first day from the AL chief’s political office in the capital’s Dhanmondi. Some of them also submitted the forms.

Ashraful said the issue of staging direct election to reserved seats for women in parliament is there in the party’s election manifesto.

The manifesto also said the number of reserved seats for women in parliament will be increased to 33 percent from 15.

Now parliament has 45 reserved seats for women who are elected by the lawmakers. The AL will get 35 seats and the others the rest in proportion to party strengths in parliament.

The minister said honest candidates having good educational qualification and background of making sacrifices for the party will be given priority.

He said the forms would be sent to the AL parliamentary board that will finalise the list of party nominees.

Party nomination aspirants can collect forms paying a non-refundable amount of Tk 10,000 each from the AL office and submit those from 11:00am to 4:00pm till February 18.

As per the constitution, the election to reserved seats for women must be held within 90 days since the publication of general election results.

The party nomination aspirants who collected forms yesterday include Jubo Mohila League president Nazma Akhtar, party’s relief and welfare secretary Prof Nazma Rahman, Prof Jinnatunnesa Talukder, Hasina Doula, Mohila League president Ashrafunnesa Mosharraf, Faridunnahar Lily, Apu Ukil, Marufa Akhtar Popy and Lutfunnahar Munni.