The Election Commission will publish a public notification over
registration of the newly-floated Bangladesh Nationalist Front (BNF)
on Friday, seeking complaints from the existing registered political
parties within the next seven days.
The registered political parties will have to lodge complaints, if
any, to the commission over providing registration to the
much-controversial BNF by November 14. After the disposal of the
complaints, if found, the EC will take the final decision over giving
registration to BNF, which now wants ‘television’ as its election
symbol instead of ‘sheaf of wheat’. The public notification will be
published in national dailies – ‘The Daily Star’ and Ittefaq tomorrow,
Director (Public Relations) of the EC SM Asaduzzaman told UNB. On
Wednesday, Chief Election Commissioner Kazi Rakibuddin Ahmad said BNF
at first sought ‘sheaf of wheat’ as its polls symbol, but the
commission refused to allocate it as it looks almost similar to symbol
of another registered political party (BNP). Under the
circumstances, the party changed its logo and polls symbol, he added.
BNP has been opposing the registration of BNF as it applied to the EC
for getting registered using BNP’s logo, Ziaur Rahman’s portrait and
his 19-point programme and sheaf of wheat as election symbol which
looks like BNP’s symbol sheaf of paddy. – UNB
