Khaleda, Tarique appear unrivalled leaders in BNP

Bangladesh Nationalist Party chairperson Khaleda Zia and its senior vice-chairman Tarique Rahman, also Kahleda’s eldest son, appeared as unrivalled leaders of the party as no others collected nomination forms for election to the positions while the deadline expired on Wednesday.
The election to the positions of the party chairperson and senior vice-chairman is supposed to be held in the council session of the party scheduled for March 19.
According to the election schedule announced by election conducting commission chairman Jamiruddin Sircar on Monday, the deadline for the collection of nomination forms expired on Wednesday.
Nomination forms for the positions of chairperson and senior vice-chairman were collected only for Khaleda and Tarique respectively till the expiry of the deadline, party leaders said.
Returning officer for the election Nazrul Islam Khan said that nomination form for the position of chairperson was collected for Khaleda by her election agent Ruhul Kabir Rizvi, also BNP joint secretary general, from him at the makeshift office of the commission at BNP headquarters at Nayapaltan at about 10:45am.
He said that Tarique’s election agent Mohammad Shahjahan, also BNP joint secretary general, collected a nomination form for the position of senior vice-chairman for Tarique from him at about 3:30pm.
Returning officer Nazrul Islam Khan, also BNP standing committee member, and assistant returning officer Abdul Mannan, also BNP chairperson’s advisory council member, said that no other people collected any nomination paper till expiry of the deadline although they were waiting to sell nomination forms.
According to the election schedule, the nominations papers have to be submitted by Friday. The nomination papers would be scrutinised on March 5 and the deadline for withdrawal of nominations would expire on March 6.
Nazrul said that no other except Khaleda and Tarique took nomination forms, but they needed to wait till the expiry of the deadline for withdrawal of nominations, March 6, after the scrutiny of nomination papers on March 5.
He said that after the expiry of the deadline for withdrawal of nominations, the commission on the basis of the report of the returning officer and assistant returning officer would give their statement over the election.
Asked why any other candidate did not collect nomination forms for the two top positions in the party, Nazrul said if he could know whoever others were interested in contesting for the two posts then he could inquire them about the reasons.
Election commission member Harun-al-Rashid, also BNP vice-chairman, monitored the distribution of nomination forms.

News Courtesy: www.newagebd.com