President of Liberal Democratic Party(LDP) Col (retd) Oli Ahmed yesterday said one of the main reasons for BNP's debacle in the recent parliamentary polls is their association with war criminals and razakars (collaborators).
The Awami League president, Sheikh Hasina, who won three parliamentary seats in the December 29 polls, retained Gopalganj 3 as her constituency. According to the constitution and laws, a person can contest the national polls for not more than three constituencies and if a person is elected from more constituencies than one, the person needs to inform the Election Commission in writing retaining a single constituency, which she or he wants to represent, before swearing in as a lawmaker.
Awami League’s senior presidium member Zillur Rahman is going to be the next president of the country. The AL chief, Sheikh Hasina, told newsman on Saturday at the parliament building complex that her party would nominate its presidium member Zillur Rahman as head of the state.
New Age: The MPs-elect of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party-led alliance will not take oath today, according to the alliance sources. The party chairperson Khaleda Zia made the decision after a meeting with her party’s two senior MPs-elect— MK Anwar and Salauddin Quader Chowdhury— at her Dhaka Cantonment residence Saturday night.
Gulf News: Bangladesh's new government, expected to be sworn in next week, will act quickly to strengthen relations with the Arab world, especially the six Gulf states. The Gulf is host to more two million non-resident Bangladeshis, who are also collectively the biggest source of remittances to forex-hungry Bangladesh.
Jatiya Party (JP) Chairman HM Ershad yesterday said the Awami League and his party will jointly form the next government according to the conditions of the grand alliance.
Members of the eighth parliament, who lost their seats in the December 29 polls and who could not win party tickets to contest the polls, have started leaving the NAM flats and hostels which will be allotted to the new lawmakers from next month.
Taib Ahmed, New Age: The voters took 72 seconds each, on an average, in casting vote in the 9th parliamentary polls held on December 29, EC statistics showed. The statistics was made taking into consideration the vote casting schedule from 8am to 4pm. But in many polling centres the voters who were standing in the queues at 4pm, they were allowed to cast their votes.
Francesc Vendrell, head of UN secretary-general’s panel for Bangladesh parliamentary elections, on Friday said that the Awami League members should extend their hands of friendship to the BNP members to enable them to play a constructive role in the parliament to strengthen the country’s democracy.
The Bangladesh Nationalist Party on Friday said they would play a constructive role as the opposition party in the ninth parliament if the treasury bench acts properly.
‘The treasury bench will certainly get our cooperation if they truly want to make the parliament effective,’ said the party’s secretary general Khandaker Delwar Hossain in his house at Sher-e-Bangla Nagar before heading for Manikganj.
