BD Correspondent:

The Bangladesh Nationalist Party is trying to manage its allies offering them about 70 of the 300 seats in the 11th parliamentary elections rescheduled for December 30.

Its allies in the new alliance Jatiya Oikya Front and the BNP-led alliance have, however, demanded 120 seats, party leaders said.
BNP formed a three-member committee headed by standing committee member Khandaker Mosharraf Hossain to negotiate the sharing of seats with the allies, BNP secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir told on November 14.
‘The process of sharing seats will begin after the scrutiny of our party aspirants buying nomination forms to contest the polls in 300 constituencies,’ he said.
BNP is now selling nomination forms to party aspirants and the sale would continue until Friday.
Party leaders, however, said that the negotiations on eat sharing with the allies was going on.
The committee of Khandaker Mosharraf Hossain, Miza Abbas and Nazrul Islam Khan was also tasked with studying thoroughly the party’s position in each of the 300 constituencies, the party leaders said.
Discussions with top leaders of BNP and its allies suggested that the Jatiya Oikya Front, comprised of the Gono Forum led by Dr Kamal Hossain, Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal – JSD led by ASM Rob, Nagorik Oikya led by Mahmudur Rahman Manna and Krishak Sramik Janata League led by Abdul Kader Siddique, wanted to contest in 70 constituencies with alliance nominations.
The front led by Kamal was launched on October 13, 2018 for a free, fair and credible general election.
Two top JSD and Nagorik Oikya leaders said that each of the parties demanded 20 seats.
BNP leaders said that about 50 seats were demanded by the parties in the BNP-led alliance, including 30 by the Jamaat-e-Islami, which lost its registration as a political party following a Supreme Court verdict.
A BNP standing committee member said that the party could easily leave 25-30 seats for its allies without major sacrifices as the party was is organisationally weak or had no vital candidates in those constituencies.
He said that BNP might leave about 70 seats for its allies to field their candidates for contesting the polls with alliance nominations.
BNP never won parliamentary polls in 70 constituencies in some in different districts, including Gopalganj, Madaripur and Rangpur, party leaders said.
An Oikya Front leader said that they would not accept if BNP offered to them the constituencies where the party was weak.
BNP leaders think that it has to leave for Jamaat most the seats to be shared with allies.
Jamaat leaders said that they preferred contesting the polls as independent candidates but with an underhand deal with BNP.
BNP leaders, however, said that they wanted Jamaat to contest the polls as alliance candidates with BNP’s electoral symbol sheaf of paddy.
BNP leaders said that the jailed party chairperson Khaleda Zia and acting chairman Tarique Rahman, now in London, would finalise the seat-sharing policy.