As it seems so far, everyone in the country is seeking Awami League tickets to contest the national polls slated for January 7.

With a little over a month and a half to go until election day, 112 leaders and activists of the BNP and its front organisations were sentenced in Dhaka and Rangpur yesterday in cases filed over political violence.

Mehedi Hasan was in Kuwait when Jatrabari police filed a case on July 30 over political violence in the area the day before.  Police named 99 people, mostly BNP leaders and activists, in the case, and Mehedi was not among them.

BNP today called a 48-hour countrywide blockade from Wednesday morning

At least 20 BNP activists were wounded, 16 of them with shotgun pellets, in Noakhali’s Senbagh after a procession was attacked on the first day of the 48-hour nationwide hartal yesterday.

The Appellate Division of the Supreme Court yesterday dismissed an appeal filed by Jamaat-e-Islami, challenging a 2013 High Court verdict that declared illegal the party’s registration with the Election Commission.

Violations of the electoral code of conduct ran rampant as MP aspirants and their supporters flocked to the Awami League’s central office on Bangabandhu Avenue yesterday.

Opposition Leader Raushan Ershad yesterday urged President Mohammed Shahabuddin to hold dialogues with political parties to make the election more participatory and festive.

The Detective Branch (DB) of police yesterday said they arrested six activists of BNP and its affiliated bodies for their alleged involvement in the attack on police and setting fire to vehicles on October 28.

Says Shahriar Alam

Unidentified criminals set a truck on fire on Gausia road in Gazipur's Tongi at around 10:58pm

Another crude bomb blasted in front of Wari Police Station

The Awami League has sold a total of 2,286 nomination forms in two days for the 12th parliamentary elections

Two buses were torched in Jatrabari and Dhanmondi areas of Dhaka today, on the first day of the BNP's hartal

The nomination papers will be sold from the JP chairman's Banani office from 11:00pm

A huge crowd of nomination aspirants and supporters had arrived at the office in droves on the second day as well

The 48-hour nationwide hartal called by the BNP and its allies to protest the Election Commission’s announcement of the polls schedule begins at 6:00am today.

Scenes at the Awami League and BNP offices could not be more contrasting.

The demand for using the ruling Awami League’s electoral symbol “boat” seems high among the registered political parties, as the opposition BNP and allies remain unyielding in their demand for polls under a non-partisan administration.

Conflict within the Jatiya Party came to the fore once again as two top leaders wrote to the Election Commission yesterday about the authority to sign the nomination forms of candidates and taking part in the January 7 national election.