BNP applies to EC seeking time till Jan 31

Submission of constitution
With the deadline for submission of final party Constitution to the Election Commission only six days away, the BNP yesterday submitted an application to the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) seeking time until January 31 next year for submitting its constitution following approval by the national council.
While the ruling party the Awami League has convened its national council in a hurry to be held on July 24, a day ahead of the deadline, a number of smaller parties are learnt to have also applied to the Election Commission for extension of time.
The Election Commission will now forward the request for extension of time to the government for suitable amendment of the RPO (Representation of People Order).
BNP office secretary Ruhul Kabir Rizvi handed over the letter signed by secretary general Khandker Delwar Hussain to CEC Dr ATM Shamsul Huda at around 3 in the afternoon yesterday.
“I, on behalf of the party, have submitted an application to the Chief Election Commissioner requesting for extending the timeline to 31 January 2010. The CEC has accepted the application with a positive attitude,” Mr Rizvi said while talking to journalists on the EC Secretariat premises after submitting the application to the CEC.
The Election Commission expects that all the political parties will have a strong democratic footing and the spirit of the national council of a political party is also to ensure democratic practice in the party, he added.
“We want to hold the party council in that spirit. All the committees including union, ward, upazila and district levels have to be elected through council meetings. So it will take quite some time to complete the formalities of holding council meetings countrywide. We hope the Election Commission will honour the democratic spirit of the opposition party through taking measure for extending the deadline for submitting the council-approved constitution,” the BNP leader said.
It is worth mentioning here that till date only one political party- Liberal Democratic Party has submitted its permanent constitution to the EC. A number of small parties have submitted applications for extending the deadline. 
Later, while talking to journalists CEC Dr ATM Shamsul Huda said the Commission has received the BNP’s application for extending the timeframe.
“We will send the application of BNP to the government for taking decision regarding extension of the timeframe as the Commission is not the authority for taking decision in this regard. The Commission will also send recommendations to the government for making some amendments to the amended Representation of the People Order, 1972 (RPO, 1972),” Dr Huda said.
Replying to a query about what measures the EC will take about opposition MP Salauddin Quader Chowdhury, the CEC said that the Commission would decide about it later.
“It’s (taking decision about SQ Chowdhury) a petty job. We have other important jobs to do first. So, it may take around one month to take a decision about the matter,” Dr Huda said.
At the end of June the Election Commission sent a letter to Speaker of the parliament Advocate Abdul Hamid with recommendations for stripping  the membership of the Jatiya Sangsad of SQ Chowdhury.
The Speaker recently sent a reply to the EC’s letter saying that the EC has the authority to take decision on the membership of an MP  and the Speaker can only make an announcement in the Parliament that a seat has become vacant.

Courtesy of The Independent