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Dhaka: The Election commission in Bangladesh has scrapped or withheld the nomination papers of a dozen stalwarts of major political parties as scrutiny of candidatures was underway under the schedule for December 29 general elections in the country.
Officials said candidatures of some 200 contenders, including over a dozen of former ministers and lawmakers were cancelled while the nomination papers of several other high-profile politicians were withheld on various grounds in line with the election laws. "The commission is expected to finalise the list valid nomination papers later on Friday after the two-day scrutiny," an election commission spokesman told Gulf News.
The returning officers cancelled the nominations on various grounds including conviction in corruption cases, defaulting on bank loans and utility service bills and for giving wrong information and document forgery, while 2,460 nomination papers were filed by contestants nominated by 39 political parties and 391 by independent candidates.
Cancellation
Several nominations, mostly of independent candidates, were cancelled because they either failed to submit the signatures of one per cent of the voters of the constituency as required by the recently amended Representation of People Order (RPO), the main election law.
The bigwigs who lost their candidature included influential former junior minister for home Lutfozzaman Babar of ex-premier Khalida Zia's Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), Mohiuddin Khan Alamgir, former planning minister of Shaikh Hasina's Awami League and United Citizens' Movement President Quazi Faruque Ahmad.
The election commission has withheld the nomination papers of former military ruler HM Ershad, whose Jatiya Party is a crucial ally of ex-premier Hasina's Awami League-led grand alliance.
The report came two days after Bangladesh Bank identified 89 candidates as loan defaulters while the central bank said they were cross-checking records of more suspected non-payers.
Sources, however, said earlier that at least 40 candidates have obtained stay orders from the High Court as the process was underway to debar them from contesting the polls under the election laws.
"The central bank has nothing to do if the High Court clears them for the polls but we have asked our officials and the banks to put in their best efforts to vacate the stay orders as early as possible," a Bangladesh Bank spokesman said.
We have asked our officials and the banks to put in their best efforts to vacate the stay orders as early as possible."
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