The official election campaign by political parties can be started right after the allocation of electoral symbols among their candidates on Monday.
“Electoral symbols will be allocated among candidates on Monday. Immediately after the symbol allocation, the formal electioneering can be launched,” Election Commission’s Joint Secretary SM Asaduzzaman told UNB on Sunday. Retuning officers finalised the candidates for 300 constituencies after the deadline for withdrawal of candidature that expired at 5:00pm on Sunday.
Asaduzzaman said no candidate can spend more than Tk 10 per voter during the electioneering, but the total election expenditures, including the party’s donation, of a candidate cannot exceed the limit of Tk 25 lakh. The Commission has already deployed 600 judicial magistrates and nearly 1,000 executive magistrates to punish the violation of the electoral code of conduct during the campaign.
As part of the election campaign, the candidates can hang only black-white posters of the maximum 60cmX45 cm size, but no poster can be pasted. Neither any colourful poster nor a banner-size one can be used.In case of banner, the highest size is 3X1 metre as per the electoral code of conduct.
A total of 3,065 candidates — 2,567 from all the 39 registered political parties and 498 independent ones — filed nomination papers to contest the election from 300 constituencies in the country.The returning officers on December 2 accepted 2,279 nomination papers and rejected 786 during scrutiny.Later, 243 candidates got back their candidacies as the Election Commission upheld their appeals.
Besides, many other candidates, including Ganajagaran Mancha spokesperson Imran H Sarkar, independent candidate for Kurigram-4, have got back their candidatures with the High Court’s orders.Though the deadline for the withdrawal of candidature expired on Sunday afternoon, the number of total contesting candidates was not available in the EC till filing the report at 7:10pm.
source: UNB
