BNM, Trinamool BNP yet to find 'competent candidates'

Newly registered political parties Trinamool BNP and Bangladesh Nationalist Movement (BNM) are yet to find ‘competent candidates’ although they announced their fielding of candidates in all 300 parliamentary seats. The rumour of influential BNP leaders including former lawmakers joining the party is yet to come true till yesterday.

Trinamool BNP started selling nomination forms of the party for the 12th general election from 18 November. The party claims that 424 people have taken the nomination forms till Friday evening. Four of them are former members of parliament. Two are former lawmakers from Jatiya Party, one each from Awami League and Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). Former BNP vice-chairman Shamsher Mobin Chowdhury, who had resigned from the party, is the chairman of Trinamool BNP while BNP chairperson’s former adviser Taimur Alam Khandakar, who was sacked from the party, is the secretary general. The party is yet to draw any familiar political face in their fold.

Trinamool BNP’s co-chairperson KA Jahangir Majumdar spoke with journalists at its office at Purana Paltan. He said, “We are looking for competent candidates. We want to field candidates in 300 seats but we’ll file candidates in as many constituencies as possible. So far four MPs have collected nomination form of Trinamool BNP.”

Meanwhile, another party called 'Progressive Democratic Forum' made its debut with the run up to the election. This party is led by former vice president of Chattogram north  BNP and former VP of Chittagong University Central Students' Union (CUCSU) Nazim Uddin and general secretary Azim Uddin. Since the party is not registered with the election commission, the leaders said candidates of this newly formed party will field candidates from Trinamool BNP. Progressive Democratic Forum chairman Nazim Uddin has collected Trinamool BNP’s  nomination form for Chattogram-5 constituency and Azim Uddin for Feni-3 constituency.

BNM started selling party’s nomination forms for the elections from last Tuesday. The party said that as many as 260 nomination forms have been sold till yesterday. Of them, four former MPs of BNP, who joined the party recently, are notable. Among them, Shah Mohammad Abu Zafar has become the acting chairman of BNM immediately after joining the party.

BNM leaders are still hopeful that many former BNP MPs will participate in the election from BNM. There is a discussion that several former BNP MPs from Bogura might join the party.

However, the deadline to submit the nomination papers is drawing near. The last date of submission of nomination form is 30 November. After four former MPs joined BNM on 20 October, no notable figures have joined the party yet.

Shah Mohammad Abu Zafar is still confident about the prospects of his party.

“We are talking with many people. Around 30 to 35 former MPs will join within several days. Four MPs from Bogura has already taken final decision to join the BNM,” Abu Zafar told Prothom Alo on Thursday.

Meanwhile a discussion was prevalent in the political arena that several leaders of other parties including former MPs will join BNM today, Saturday. A big event was supposed to be held to welcome them. But the party’s secretary general Md Shahjahan told Prothom Alo on Friday evening that the event won’t be big one rather newcomers could be welcomed in a small event.

Bangladesh Supreme Party (BSP) is another newly registered party. Chairman of the party Syed Saifuddin Ahmed Al Maizbhandari told Prothom Alo that he wants to contest from Chattogram-2 and Chattogram-9 constituencies. He claimed that BSP will field candidates in all constituencies including in 16 of  Chattogram.

Bangladesh Nationalist Front (BNF) president Abul Kalam Azad came to the limelight as an MP from Dhaka-17 (Gulshan-Baridhara) constituency in 2014. The BNF earned the epithet of 'King's Party' at that time. Abul Kalam Azad has taken the nomination form from Chattogram-8 seat. The name of BNF is not being discussed that much this time as many new 'King's parties' have come to the fore.

BNM and Trinamool BNP both are being discussed as ‘King’s party’ in this election. The leaders of the parties, however, denied being in the election fray at any quarter’s instigation.

BNP and Ganatantra Mancha leaders allege the government is trying to break the opposition parties by launching such parties.

BNP’s senior joint secretary Ruhul Kabir Rizvi in his virtual press briefing on Friday alleged that the government is looting public money to form new parties out of deserters.

(Gazi Firoz from Chattogram contributed to this story)