As election officials ended their scrutiny of municipality election nomination papers, the nominations of at least 25 mayoral hopefuls were scrapped in different districts yesterday along with a number of councillor and reserved seat aspirants.
In five municipalities of Shariatpur, the nominations of 13 mayoral hopefuls including two AL-backed candidates were scrapped, along with 16 more councillor aspirants.
In Sadar municipality, the candidacy of Awami League-nominated Rafiqul Islam Kotowal was scrapped because he had defaulted a loan at Janata Bank’s Karwan Bazar branch, while ruling party-backed Humayun Kabir Bachchu’s nomination was cancelled in Damudya municipality because he failed to submit any educational certificate to back up claims he had made in his affidavit.
In the district’s Bhedarganj municipality, four independent mayoral hopefuls saw nominations scrapped; one independent aspirant’s nomination was cancelled in Damudya; while the number was three each in Nariya and Jajira municipalities.
In Sylhet’s Golapganj, the nominations of three mayoral candidates were cancelled. BNP-backed Golam Kibria Chowdhury was disallowed for loan default, Jatiya Party’s Md Suhed Ahmed for not submitting income tax return, and Khelafat Majlish leader Aminul Islam’s nomination was cancelled for not filling up the form properly. Sylhet District Election Officer Azizul Islam confirmed the news to our Sylhet correspondent.
In Jhenaidah’s Moheshpur municipality, Returning Officer Jahangir Hossain cancelled the nominations of three mayoral aspirants: BNP-backed Nabijuddola, JaSad-backed Ramjan Ali, and independent candidate Shahidul Islam. The returning officer told our Jhenaidah correspondent that the nominations were scrapped because of errors in the submitted papers.
In Kurigram’s Ulipur municipality, Returning Officer Delwar Hossain – also the district election officer – cancelled the nominations of two mayoral hopefuls: Awami League’s rebel candidate Abu Sayeed and BNP’s rebel Abdur Razzak. Five councillor aspirants and one aspirant for the reserved woman councillor seat also saw their nominations being scrapped.
Our correspondent in the district also reports that in the Kurigram municipality, Returning Officer Aktar Hossain Azad cancelled the nominations of nine councillor hopefuls and three more women who had submitted papers for the reserved seats.
In Narsingdi municipality, nominations were cancelled for two mayoral candidates: Aminul Islam, backed by the Islami Oikko Jote, and Jamaat leader Jahirul Islam Manik, who was running independently. Another reserved women councillor hopeful, Munni Akhter, also had her nomination scrapped.
Suraiya Begum, Narsingdi’s returning officer, told our correspondent that Aminul’s documents were incomplete and Jahirul had mentioned two out-of-municipality voters as his supporters.
In Panchagarh, nominations were cancelled for one mayoral candidate, six general councillor aspirants and three reserved seat hopefuls. Our Panchagarh correspondent says the nomination of mayoral hopeful Jamaat’s district Ameer Abdul Khalek – who had filed papers independently – was cancelled.
The nominations of one mayoral candidate, one reserved seat candidate and four general councillor hopefuls were scrapped in Khagrachhari and Matiranga municipalities due to lack of necessary papers.
Md Nurul Alam, district election officer and returning officer for Matiranga, said general councillor candidature of one Nurul Islam Nuru was cancelled.
Khagrachhari municipality Returning Officer ATM Kousar Hossain told our district correspondent that nomination of mayoral candidate Advocate Samari Chakma was cancelled along with councillor hopefuls Dumketu Marma, Mongchinu Marma and Chironjit Tripura.