Reserved seats for women in parliament: All 50 win uncontested

All the 50 candidates for the reserved seats for women in the 12th parliament were declared elected unopposed Sunday, the last day for the withdrawal of nomination papers.

Returning officer Moniruzzaman Talukdar announced the candidates as winners.

The voting was scheduled for 14 March. But the voting was not required as there were no other opposing candidates. The voters of this election are the MPs elected by direct voting. However, no voting was seen for the reserved seats for women in previous parliaments as well.

The women’s seats are distributed among the parties or alliances in proportion to the number of seats they win out of the 300 seats in the assembly.

The governing Awami League, with the support of 62 independent MPs and two seats of the 14-party alliance, got 48 seats while Jatiya Party got two reserved seats.

Awami League won 224 seats in the 12th parliamentary elections held on 7 January, JaPa has 11 seats and AL-led 14-party alliance’s Workers Party won a seat, and JASAD got one. Apart from this, the Bangladesh Kalyan Party got a seat in the election.

Awami League and Jatiya Party’s candidates for the reserved women’s seats submitted their nomination papers to the returning officer on 18 February. All the nomination papers were declared valid in the selection on 19 and 20 February.

The last date for withdrawal of nomination papers was until 4:00 pm on 25 February. All 50 candidates were declared winners as none withdrew their nominations within the stipulated time.

The gazette of unopposed women candidates is likely to be published Tuesday. Then they will take an oath.

Returning officer Md. Moniruzzaman Talukdar told the newspersons at his Nirbachan Bhaban (election building) office at Agargaon in the capital in afternoon that he received a total of 50 nomination papers, and all 50 nomination papers were valid in the selection.

He further said that the candidates had an opportunity to withdraw nomination papers until 4:00 pm today but none applied for withdrawal by that time.

Since all nomination papers are valid, two candidates from the Jatiya Party and 48 from the Bangladesh Awami League and their coalition have been declared unopposed winners unofficially, he added.