AL faces greater challenge than BNP to deal with rebels
UNB, Dhaka :
Awami League is likely to face a bigger challenge in the December-30 municipality elections than its arch rival BNP as a crowd of rebel candidates from the ruling party are in the race for mayoral posts.
With the expiry of the deadline for submission of nominations at 5pm on Thursday, it showed that Awami League has nearly 110 dissident mayoral candidates in almost 200 of the 235 municipalities, now on stake for polls.
Out of 200 municipalities, the ruling party dissident candidates filed
nomination in 70, while the BNP camp got only 58 rebel aspirants in the 200 municipalities, according to reports reaching the UNB news desk.
Awami League sources said the dissidents paid little heed to their party’s strong instruction and threats of expulsion to keep them off the electoral race.
An Awami League senior leader wishing anonymity told UNB that as the governing party it has many competent aspirants in all the municipalities. “But we’d to choose one from them. Those did not get party’s nomination got aggrieved and filed nominations to run independently.”
He said many local leaders filed nominations as independent candidates to put pressure on the party high-ups to change their decision. “Most of them, I think, will later withdraw their candidature.”
Awami League joint general secretary Mahbub-ul-Alam Hanif, meanwhile, warned the party’s rebel candidates saying that anyone violating its decision will face the music.
“If anyone violates the party’s decision, s/he will face maximum punishment, I mean expulsion, for breaking the organisational discipline,” he told a press conference at the Awami League President’ s Dhanmondi political office in the afternoon.
Announcing the list of 234 AL-nominated candidates for the mayoral post of the election, he said there will be no Awami League’s rebel candidate in the election after December 13, the last date for withdrawal of candidature.
“Several candidates from the ruling Awami League have filed nominations in some municipalities for strategic reasons to avoid vacuum. I can assure [you] there’ll be no rebel candidate after December 13,” he said.
Awami League is likely to face a bigger challenge in the December-30 municipality elections than its arch rival BNP as a crowd of rebel candidates from the ruling party are in the race for mayoral posts.
With the expiry of the deadline for submission of nominations at 5pm on Thursday, it showed that Awami League has nearly 110 dissident mayoral candidates in almost 200 of the 235 municipalities, now on stake for polls.
Out of 200 municipalities, the ruling party dissident candidates filed
nomination in 70, while the BNP camp got only 58 rebel aspirants in the 200 municipalities, according to reports reaching the UNB news desk.
Awami League sources said the dissidents paid little heed to their party’s strong instruction and threats of expulsion to keep them off the electoral race.
An Awami League senior leader wishing anonymity told UNB that as the governing party it has many competent aspirants in all the municipalities. “But we’d to choose one from them. Those did not get party’s nomination got aggrieved and filed nominations to run independently.”
He said many local leaders filed nominations as independent candidates to put pressure on the party high-ups to change their decision. “Most of them, I think, will later withdraw their candidature.”
Awami League joint general secretary Mahbub-ul-Alam Hanif, meanwhile, warned the party’s rebel candidates saying that anyone violating its decision will face the music.
“If anyone violates the party’s decision, s/he will face maximum punishment, I mean expulsion, for breaking the organisational discipline,” he told a press conference at the Awami League President’ s Dhanmondi political office in the afternoon.
Announcing the list of 234 AL-nominated candidates for the mayoral post of the election, he said there will be no Awami League’s rebel candidate in the election after December 13, the last date for withdrawal of candidature.
“Several candidates from the ruling Awami League have filed nominations in some municipalities for strategic reasons to avoid vacuum. I can assure [you] there’ll be no rebel candidate after December 13,” he said.
