Party confides on stalwarts, Abul Hossain left out
The ruling Awami League (AL) on Friday announced its final candidates’ list for 300 constituencies to contest the upcoming 10th parliamentary election scheduled for January 5 amid the opposition threat to boycott the polls. The party’s general secretary, Syed Ashraful Islam, announced the names of those who got the party tickets for contesting the next polls through a press conference held at the Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s Dhanmondi political office in the city.
Awami League selected the 300 candidates from 2608, for the Jatiya Sangsad (JS) election after holding a series of meetings of its parliamentary board (ALPB) from Wednesday, specially arranged to scrutinise the nomination papers.
The AL?president and head of ‘all-party’ poll-time government, Sheikh Hasina, got nomination for Rangpur-6 and Gopalganj-3 constituencies.
Syed Ashraf got nomination for Kishoreganj-1, AL senior leaders Tofail Ahmed for Bhola-1, Amir Hossain Amu for Jhalakathi-2, Matia Chowdhury for Sherpur-2, Abul Maal Abdul Muhith for Sylhet-1, Nurul Islam Nahid for Sylhet-6, Mohammad Nasim for Sirajganj-1, Mahbubul Alam Hanif for Kushtia-3, Asaduzzaman Noor for Nilphamari-2, AFM Ruhal
Haque for Satkhira-3, Abdul Latif Siddique for Tangail-4, Shamsul Haque Tuku for Pabna-1, Advocate Qamrul Islam for Dhaka-2, Sahara Khatun for Dhaka-18, Saber Hossain Chowhdury for Dhaka-9, Jahangir Kabir Nanak for Dhaka-13, Sheikh Selim for Gopalganj-2, Obaidul Kader for Noakhali-5, Suranjit Sengupta for Sunamganj-2, Nazmul Haque Papan for Kishoreganj-6, Dipu Moni for Chandpur-3, Mofazzal Hossain Chowdhury Maya for Chandpur-2, Fazle Noor Tapas for Dhaka-10.
However, former communication minister Syed Abul Hossain was not given the party ticket. He was criticized for his alleged involvement in the much-talked about Padma Bridge scandal.
Speaking at the news conference, Syed Ashraful Islam said, “This is only the list of Awami League candidates. As we will take part in the next elections together with 14-party alliance, the final list of 14-party will be declared later through a press conference.”
At the same time, the AL general secretary expressed his optimism that the 10th parliamentary elections would be free, fair and credible with the participation of all political parties including the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP).
Earlier, the AL started selling its nomination papers from November 10 that ended on November 17 and had sold 2,608 forms against the 300 parliamentary constituencies.
On average, more than eight nomination seekers had collected forms for each of the constituencies with the hope of getting a party ticket for contesting the 10th JS polls.
Meanwhile, Chief election commissioner Kazi Rakibuddin Ahmed on Monday announced the schedule for the 10th parliamentary elections. In the draft schedule, January 5 was fixed as the election date, Dec 6 as the last date for submission of nomination, Dec 8 and 9 were fixed for scrutiny of nominations, and Dec 17 as the last date for nomination withdrawal.
-With The Independent input
