Golam Maula Rony, 22 others approved to run for election after EC review

Patuakhali-3 BNP candidate Golam Maula Rony and 22 others have won their petition to the Election Commission, or EC, to review their nomination applications for the parliamentary polls.

As a result, the nominees, who had initially been rejected, will be able to contest the coming polls.

The decision was taken on Thursday, the first day of appeal hearings for nominees who had their applications rejected.

The hearing began at 10am on the eleventh floor of the EC’s headquarters. Of the 534 appeal petitions, a total of 160 have been settled on the first day.

Chief Election Commissioner KM Nurul Huda and election commissioners Mahbub Talukdar, Rafiqul Islam, Kabita Khanam and Shahadat Hossain Chowdhury sat on the temporary board formed to consider the reviews.

Golam Maula Rony, a former Awami League leader, had his application as the BNP’s candidate rejected on Dec 2 by the Patuakhali returning officer due to ‘no signature on the affidavit’.

Rony, who had been elected as an Awami League candidate in 2008, said the absence of his signature was a ‘simple mistake’ and claimed that no nomination had ever been dismissed for such a reason.

Rony’s lawyer, BNP leader Mahbub Uddin Khokon, told the media after Thursday’s hearing that Rony will be allowed to sign his affidavit.

Jamalpur-4 BNP pick Faridul Kabir Talukdar’s nomination has also been declared valid. The returning officer had rejected his application on the grounds that the upazila chairman’s resignation had not been accepted.

Bogura-7 BNP pick Morshed Milton, who had been the alternate nominee to party chief Khaleda Zia, has also been approved for the polls on review. His nomination had initially been rejected for the same reason as Talukdar.

Other candidates who were rejected for the same reason, such as Dhaka-1’s Khandkar Abu Ashfaq and Dhaka-20’s paddy sheaf candidate Tamiz Uddin, were also approved.

Kishoreganj-2 BNP pick Akhtaruzzaman, who had been rejected because he had been a guarantor to a defaulted loan, was also approved by the EC.

But the much discussed nomination of independent candidate Ashraful Alom aka Hero Alom for the Bogura-4 seat was not approved on appeal. The returning officer had rejected his nomination due to fraudulent signatures.   

Before taking a recess at 12pm, the Election Commission heard 50 appeal petitions and approved the nominations in 23 cases.

“The commission has restored the nomination of several of our candidates,” said BNP leader and lawyer Mahbub Uddin Khokon. “But our satisfaction depends on whether Begum Khaleda Zia’s nomination is restored.”

Khaleda Zia has been in jail since Feb 8 and is serving 10 years in prison in the Zia Orphanage Trust graft case and seven years in the Zia Charitable Trust graft case. The BNP had picked her as their nominee for the Feni-1, Bogura-6 and Bogura-7 seats, but returning officers had rejected her nominations following a court decision that barred anyone sentenced to two or more years in prison from running for office.