EC's decision on A.K. Azad's appeal against Shamim Haque pending

Decision on Independent candidate A.K. Azad's appeal to the Election Commission to cancel the candidature of Shamim Haque, Awami League-nominated candidate for the Faridpur-3 (Sadar) seat, alleging that he has dual citizenship, is left pending. The EC will disclose its decision on the matter at a later date.

Led by Chief Election Commissioner Kazi Habibul Awal, the EC took the decision after hearing the appeal at the Nirbachan Bhaban in the city's Agargaon area on Wednesday.

Mostafizur Khan, lawyer of A.K. Azad, said some documents were presented on behalf of Shamim Haque. The EC will verify the documents and disclose their decision on December 15.

Azad’s lawyer Golam Kibria filed the appeal on December 8.

While talking to reporters, Kibria said, “Awami League candidate Shamim Haque is a citizen of the Netherlands. At the time of scrutinization of nomination papers, independent candidate A.K. Azad placed a written complaint to the returning officer in this regard. However, the returning officer declared Shamim Haque's nomination paper valid without cancelling it. An appeal has been filed to the Election Commission on Friday against this order of the returning officer.”

He further said, “Shamim Haque's previous passport number of Netherlands is BESHC8751, date of birth is written on 21 October 1960. Shamim Haque recently submitted an application to the Faridpur passport office to issue his Bangladeshi passport. He has marked a tick in the dual citizenship box in column no.25 of that application. In column 26, it is asked to mention the name of the country if the candidate is a citizen of another country; there he mentioned the Netherlands. Column 27 mentions his Netherlands passport number bearing BY60F0J74.”

/KN/