EC sends postal ballots for Bogura-6, Sherpur-3 polls

The Election Commission on Thursday began dispatching postal ballots to registered expatriate voters in the Bogura-6 and Sherpur-3 constituencies ahead of the 9 April election.

Confirming the development, team leader of the OCV-SDI expatriate voter registration project Salim Ahmad Khan said 1,281 registered overseas voters in Bogura-6 and 383 in Sherpur-3 will gradually receive the postal ballots. Earlier on Wednesday, EC Secretary Akhter Ahmed said that the process of receiving postal votes within the country will begin around 23 or 24 March.

According to the schedule announced by the Election Commission, voting in the by-election to the Bogura-6 constituency and the general election to the Sherpur-3 constituency will be held on 9 April from 7:30am to 4:30pm without interruption, using ballot papers and transparent ballot boxes.

In Bogura-6, Md Rezaul Karim Badsha of BNP, Md Abidur Rahman of Jamaat-e-Islami, and Md Al Alim Talukder of the Bangladesh Development Party have submitted their nomination papers. The returning officer has completed the scrutiny process and no appeals have been filed, leaving all three as valid candidates.

BNP chairperson Tarique Rahman won the 12 February election in this constituency. However, as the law does not allow a member to hold two parliamentary seats simultaneously, he chose to retain the Dhaka-17 seat and vacated Bogura-6. The Commission subsequently declared the seat vacant and announced a fresh schedule.

Meanwhile, voting in Sherpur-3 was suspended a week before the national election following the death of Jamaat candidate Mohammad Nuruzzaman Badal.