Sheikh Fazle Noor Taposh, Haji Md Salim, and Atiqul Islam were among eight people who collected nomination forms on Wednesday from Awami League, aiming to secure the party’s ticket and run for mayor in the upcoming Dhaka city corporation elections.
Dhaka North City Corporation (DNCC) and Dhaka South City Corporation (DSCC) elections are scheduled for January 30.
Both Taposh and Salim are ruling party MPs and Atiqul is the incumbent DNCC mayor.
Awami League started selling nomination forms at the party president’s Dhanmondi political office on Wednesday morning. Both mayoral and councillor party aspirants will be able to collect and submit nomination forms to the party by 5pm Friday, 27 December.
The party’s Office Secretary, Biplab Barua, told Dhaka Tribune that eight aspirants collected nomination forms up until on Wednesday. “The price of each mayoral form is Tk25,000.”
Party sources said four candidates — Taposh, Salim, Sheikh Russel Jatiya Shishu Kishore Parishad Adviser Md Nazmul Haque, and Bangladesh Muktijoddha Sangsad Central Command Council’s former vice president MA Rashid — have collected forms to run for mayor of DSCC.
Awami League’s Dhaka City South unit outgoing Organizing Secretary Kazi Morshed Kamal brings the form on behalf of Taposh from the party president’s Dhanmondi office on Wednesday, December 25, 2015 | Mehedi Hasan/Dhaka Tribune
Four others — Atiqul, Bangabandhu Foundation Joint General Secretary Shahidullah Osmani, Awami League’s Bhasantek Thana Vice President Yead Ali Fokir, and Awami League Dhaka north Ward 15 unit leader Jamal Bhuiyan — have also collected forms for the DNCC mayoral race.
After party nomination is confirmed, according to the Election Commission, the mayoral and councillor aspirants of both DSCC and DNCC will have to submit their nomination papers to the commission by December 31.
The nomination papers will be scrutinized on January 2, while the candidates will have until January 9 to withdraw from the race.
Voters will elect mayors and councillors on electronic voting machines (EVM) at all polling centres.
Retired Brig Gen Kamrul Islam on Wednesday collected the nomination form from main opposition Jatiya Party (JaPa) to run as a DNCC mayor candidate, a day after he led over 100 retired army officers in joining the party.
JaPa Chairman GM Quader handed over the nomination form to Kamrul at the party’s Banani office on Wednesday.
Afterwards, Quader told reporters that JaPa plans to field one candidate each in the DSCC and DNCC polls, even though they participated jointly with the ruling party in several past elections.
“We’ll take the final decision after discussion, if the ruling party makes the same proposal again,” he added.
JaPa started selling nomination forms for DNCC mayor and councillor aspirants on Wednesday. The party will start selling forms for DSCC mayor and councillor aspirants on Thursday.