The Election Commission has declared nomination papers of 12 mayoral candidates including BNP-supported Chittagong Unnayan Andolan Candidate M Manjur Alam and ruling Awami League backed Nagorik Committee candidate AJM Nasir Uddin valid for the Chittagong City Corporation (CCC) elections.
The nomination papers of five mayoral contestants of the elections to Dhaka north and south city corporations, including BNP-supported Abdul Awal Mintoo and Nasiruddin Ahmed Pintu were cancelled during scrutiny on Wednesday.The EC found the nomination papers of 42 mayoral aspirants in the two cities, including 19 hopefuls out of the total 21 of the Dhaka North City Corporation (DNCC) and 23 of Dhaka city South including former Mayor Mirza Abbas and AL-backed Sayed Khokan valid.
In the DCNC, returning officer Shah Alam rejected the nomination paper of Mintoo for procedural flaws as the person, Abdur Razzak, supported his nomination is not a voter of the DNCC.
Abdur Razzak is a voter of Uttara sector-13 under Harirampur Union, which is not under the DNCC area.
As per the clause 12 (1) of the City Corporation Rules 2010, proposer and supporter must be a voter of the respective city corporation area. Hence, the returning officer declared the nomination paper of Mintoo according to the clause 14 (3) of the same rules.
Following rejection of Mintoo’s nomination paper, his lawyer Ehsanul Rahman told reporters that they will challenge the decision of the returning officer with the appeal authority, Dhaka Divisional Commission.
Besides, another mayoral aspirant Naim Hasan’s nomination was declared invalid on charge of loan default.
In the DSCC, the returning officer turned down Pintu’s nomination as he was convicted in the BDR carnage case.
In Chittagong the nomination paper of independent candidate Syed Sajjad Joha was found invalid as he did not submit documents of income tax returns.
Returning Officer Abdul Baten on Wednesday said nominations of Jatiya Party’s Solaiman Alam Sheth, Bangladesh Nationalist Front backed Professor Arif Moinuddin and independent candidates Gazi Mohammad Alauddin, Forkan Chowdhury, Mojibul Haq Shukkur, Waes Hossain Bhuiyan, Abul Kalam Azad, Shafiul Alam, M A Matin and Saifuddin Ahmed Robi were also found valid.
Although 18 persons collected nominations for mayoral post, only 13 submitted nomination papers within the deadline.
Nomination papers of 15 councilor candidates were found valid after scrutiny till the time of filing this report. – News Desk
