Jatiya Party to start selling nomination forms today amid debate over election participation

The Jatiya Party will start selling nomination papers for the upcoming 12th national election today despite its indecisiveness about participating in polls.

The forms will be available at the Jatiya Party chairman's office in Dhaka's Banani from 10am to 4pm every day until 23 November. Candidates will be interviewed in two sections daily from 24 November to 27 November. The party will publish the list of final candidates of Jatiya Party on 28 November, reads a press release signed by Jatiya Party Joint Office Secretary Mahmud Alam.

Jatiya Party Chairman GM Quader has not yet decided on whether to participate in the elections. However, the faction-led by opposition leader and Jatiya Party Chief Patron Raushan Ershad has said they will be participating in the elections in alliance with the Awami League.

Two separate letters signed by GM Quader and Raushan Ershad, which were sent to the Election Commission on Saturday, have further fuelled these discussions.

GM Quader's special envoy Masroor Mawla told The Business Standard, "Since the Election Commission has written to us asking for party symbol, we have started selling nomination papers to advance the pre-election work. It has not yet been decided whether to go to the polls, which will not be made until the dialogue with the political parties."

If there is no dialogue before 30 November, will the Jatiya Party go to the polls? In response to such a question, he said, "We will take a decision on this matter later."

He also said, "We have started selling nomination forms to ease the suffering of their leaders and activists who have come to Dhaka from different parts of the country. Selling nominations does not mean going to the polls. We still want a dialogue."

Meanwhile, former secretary general of the JaPa and opposition chief whip in parliament Mashiur Rahman Ranga, a supporter of Raushan Ershad, said, "We have a meeting in our office tomorrow. We may also take a similar decision of distributing nomination forms."

On Sunday afternoon, Raushan Ershad met with President Mohammed Shahabuddin. She requested that a dialogue be held with political parties and that the schedule be postponed.

Meanwhile, a source in the AL has said that negotiations are underway between the AL and the Jatiya Party on whether the Jatiya Party will participate in the elections. The security of 100 seats has been sought from the Jatiya Party, but sources say that the Jatiya Party will come to the polls if it gets a guarantee of 40 seats.

However, Jatiya Party Secretary General Mujibul Haque Chunnu told reporters on Sunday that they have made all preparations for the elections, but they have not yet been able to make a decision. They believe that the environment for the elections has not yet been created.

He said, "If the elections are held fairly, we want to field candidates in all 300 seats. We do not want to form any alliance or grand alliance this time."

He also said, "There is no conflict within the party. Raushan Ershad, our chief patron, is a respectable person but she has no jurisdiction over the party's decision-making."

Such a picture before the elections of Jatiya Party is not new. The party, which was formed in 1986, is now divided into four factions. The main party was led by Ershad, whose symbol was the plough. After Ershad's fall in 1990, a section of the top leaders left the party and mostly joined the BNP. Later, some of them joined the AL. In 1999 and 2014, two more splits occurred.

Before the 2008 elections, a grand alliance was formed with the AL and the Jatiya Party in opposition to the four-party alliance. In this election, the vote share decreased to 7%, but the number of seats increased to 27. In each of these, the AL did not field a candidate and supported the Jatiya Party.

In the 2014 tenth parliamentary elections, the BNP boycotted the elections. In that election, the JP won 34 seats with the support of the AL. In this election, although the AL and the Jatiya Party did not contest the elections in alliance in all the seats, the AL did not field a candidate in the seats won by the Jatiya Party candidates.

In the 11th parliamentary election held on December 30, 2018, the Jatiya Party again formed an alliance with the Awami League. The party won 27 seats in this election. After the election, the Grand Alliance was again disbanded.

However, political analysts believe that the 2014 election may be repeated this time as well. They believe that even if the Jatiya Party does not contest the election as part of the alliance, the Awami League will not field candidates in the seats that were agreed upon by the Jatiya Party.