The BNP high-ups are still maintaining a soft stance against its rebel candidates while the ruling Awami League remains firm on its decision to go tough on party dissidents.   

The contrasting strategies are aimed at deterring party dissidents from withdrawing their nominations for the December 30 municipal polls, but neither party has so far been successful in this.

December 13 (tomorrow) is the last date for nomination withdrawal.

According to party sources, the BNP has around 27 rebel candidates against around 50 in the AL in different municipalities.

On Wednesday night, the AL central command gave its rebels 24 hours to quit their mayoral bids to avoid facing actions, including expulsion. However, very few candidates obliged, sources said.

Over the past two days, the BNP high-ups, including its acting secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir and Joint Secretary General Mohammad Shajahan spoke with several rebel mayor candidates and requested them to pull out.

"They told party rebels that it was a very crucial time for the party and they [leaders] took it as a challenge to restore the party strength. It will give a wrong message to the voters if multiple candidates run for one post. It will also affect the winning party candidates," said a BNP leader involved with the electoral work of the party.

As a tactic, the party does not want to upset leaders and activists at the moment because of “shortage of active party men”.

Meanwhile, the BNP is likely to finalise its decision over an understanding with Jamaat, the key component of the 20-party alliance, about joint participation in the polls.

In Thursday's standing committee meeting, BNP chief Khaleda Zia directed her grassroots to finalise the issue with local Jamaat. If local leaders fail to do so, she will make the decision, party sources said.

Asked, party Joint Secretary General Shajahan said they were waiting for the decision of the grassroots and hoped that the grassroots would give them a positive answer on the matter.

He also said Jamaat did not give them any list of its independent candidates or proposed any agreement.

Two standing committee members told this correspondent that an agreement on sharing candidates might not be possible in the municipalities where Jamaat men are running as independent candidates, because the BNP came to know that in some areas the ruling party exerted pressure on Jamaat to field candidates to cut into BNP votes.

The BNP may leave 10 to 15 mayor posts for Jamaat, they said.

The Daily Star spoke with several BNP and Jamaat leaders in six municipalities. All of them said they did not hold talks about the negotiation.

Kazi Abdur Rashid, president of BNP's Kahalu upazila in Bogra, said they had no interest in sitting with Jamaat, and that Jamaat did not come to meet them.

Jahurul Islam Badsha, organising secretary of Jamaat there, said they would participate in the polls without BNP support. 

Meanwhile, BNP chairperson Khaleda Zia will hold a meeting tonight with the party vice-chairman, chairperson's advisers, joint secretaries and organising secretaries to discuss different issues, including the upcoming municipality polls.

EC REJECTS AL'S PLEA

The Election Commission rejected the AL's plea to allot the party symbol to an independent candidate in Sharitpur municipality.

In a directive on Thursday night, the EC made it clear to the returning officer of Shariatpur that as per laws and rules of municipal elections there is no scope of allotting party symbols to independent candidates.

According to the Local Government Act 2015, no political party is allowed to nominate more than one person as its mayoral candidate in the municipal elections. If multiple candidates are nominated, then nominations of all party candidates will be rejected.