4 Seats In Nilphamari

Ex-minister, ex-whip among 11 security money losers

30 December 2008, 18:00 PM

Our Correspondent, Nilphamari

Eleven candidates including a former state minister and a former whip lost their security money as they failed to get minimum one-eighth of the cast vote in respective constituencies under the district in the recently concluded parliament election. Of the 20 candidates in four constituencies in the district, none but the contestants from the two electoral alliances led by Awami League and BNP could save their security money. Shafiqul Ghani Swapon, who served as member in the cabinet of late president Ziaur Rahman-led government and then during the tenure of former president HM Ershad, got only 3,649 votes and lost his security money. He contested from Bangladesh National Awami Party (NAP) with election symbol cow from Nilphamari-1 (Domar-Dimla) constituency. He was elected lawmaker two times from this constituency in the past. Another heavyweight candidate who lost his security money in the seat is Abdur Rouf, a former whip during the Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman's government. He got only 1,088 votes with election symbol 'rising sun' of Gono Forum. He was also elected twice from Nilphamari-1 constituency earlier. As per election rules, a candidate must get one-eighth of the total vote cast to save his security moiney. Accordingly, each of them needed to get 32,750 votes to save the security money as 2,61,997 were cast in the constituency having 2,88,474 votes. Of the 11 candidates who lost their security money, four persons are from Islami Andolon Bangladesh with symbol 'fan'. Two persons are from NAP. One from JSD with symbol 'torch', one from BASAD with symbol 'ladder', one from NAP (Mozaffar) with symbol 'hut' and one from Krisak Sarmik Janata League with symbol 'gamchha'. Only the grand alliance and the four-party alliance candidates could save their security money. Awami League (AL) and Jatiya Party candidates shared two seats each from the district out of four. In the district, record number of 9,11,930 voters, out of a total 10,13,595, cast their votes this time. The percentage of cast vote is about 90 percent.