The Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) has countered the move of Bangladesh Nationalist Front (BNF) to get party registration, on the ground that the latter bears fundamental resemblance to the former.
A BNP delegation yesterday met with Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Kazi Rakibuddin Ahmad and urged him not to register BNF.
The delegation was led by BNP standing committee member MK Anwar. Joint secretary general of the party Ruhul Kabir Rizvi, acting chief whip of the opposition Shahid Uddin Chowdhury Annie, and lawmaker Mahbub Uddin Khokon also accompanied him during the meeting.
Later, Anwar told reporters that the BNP opposed the registration move of BNF as the latter was using its logo and the portrait of its late founder Ziaur Rahman.
“We oppose BNF’s move to register as it is using our logo and the portrait of Ziaur Rahman. It is also using the late president’s 19-point charter to gain some political leverage and create confusion among people,” he said.
The CEC assured them of appropriate measures after investigating the allegations, he added.
Last May, the election commission decided to offer registration to two new aspirant parties – BNF and Bangladesh Sangskritik Muktijote (BSM) – after examining their organisational structures.
Prof Jahanara Begum, a former advisor to Khaleda Zia, is the chairman of BNF.
More recently, the commission offered party registration to Bangladesh Muslim League (BML) following a High Court directive in this regard. As of now, there are 39 registered political parties in the country.
According to section 90(B) of the Representation of the People’s Order, for registering with the election commission a party must have a central committee, committees in at least 21 districts and at least 200 members in at least 100 upazilas.