Nearly half of the BNP candidates who took part in Sunday's election lost their security deposits for failing to secure the minimum votes, according to an analysis of the results of 214 constituencies.

This is the highest number of BNP candidates to have lost security money since the party was formed in 1979.

Under the election law, candidates have to deposit a certain amount of money to the government exchequer to stand in the election. The amount is fixed before every election, and it was Tk 20,000 per candidate this year.

To get the money back, candidates must obtain at least one-eighth of the total vote cast in their seats.

But as many as 214 BNP candidates bagged only 13 percent of the total votes. Of them, 101 candidates secured fewer than one-eighth votes and lost their security money, according to the analysis by The Daily Star.

According to the unofficial results from 298 seats, the AL has bagged 259 seats, Jatiya Party 20 and BNP only five seats.

The BNP has never faced such a situation in any election since June 1996, when it became the largest opposition party in parliament with 116 seats. In that election, only 36 BNP candidates lost their security money.

Even in the 2008 polls, when it bagged just 30 seats, only 14 BNP candidates lost their deposits.

In that polls, held under an army-backed caretaker government, the party fielded 260 candidates and won 32 percent of the total votes cast in those constituencies.

The BNP boycotted the 2014 parliamentary polls, as the ruling Awami League government refused to meet its demand for an election under a nonpartisan administration.

This time, its candidates lost their security deposits even in the districts traditionally known as BNP stronghold -- Chattogram, Noakhali, Feni, Cumilla and Natore.

For example, the BNP candidate in Chattagram-1 got only 3,911 votes. In 2008, the party candidate secured 94,665 votes there.

In Cumilla-5, the BNP nominee got 12,113 votes this time, down from 77,260 in 2008. In Feni-2, the party candidate got 1,20,297 votes in 2008 polls and won the seat. In Sunday's election, the BNP aspirant got just 5,784 votes.

In Laxmipur-1, the BNP candidate secured 74,276 votes in 2008. It came down to just 3,892 this time. 

In Natore-1 and 2, the party candidates got 15,338 votes and 13,197 respectively this time, down from over 1 lakh votes in each of these seats in 2008.

The Jatiya Oikyafront and the BNP-led 20-party alliance will initially field multiple candidates all the 300 constituencies to avoid the risk of going to the polls without their contenders in some seats.

They have decided to employ this tactic keeping in mind that the Returning Officers (RO) might cancel some nomination papers during scrutiny on legal or technical grounds.

Sources in the Oikyafront, a combine of the BNP and several other parties, and the 20-party said they would nominate a panel of three to five candidates in each constituency for filing nomination papers.

The alliances will then pick a single candidate for each constituency on or before December 9, the last date for withdrawal of candidacies, and inform the RO of their decision in writing.

Political parties are allowed to do so under section 16 (2) of the Representation of the People's Order, the law that regulates elections.

Parties have until November 28 to file nomination papers.

In the 11 days between November 28 and December 9, alliance leaders will discuss and negotiate about their final nominee, said the sources, adding that they would focus on competence rather than the candidates' party affiliation.

“All the parties have agreed in principle to field winnable candidates. Which party is getting more seats is not in our consideration,” BNP Standing Committee Member Moudud Ahmed told The Daily Star yesterday. 

"Our focus is on competent candidates. We will accommodate competent candidates no matter which party they belong to,” he added.

Col (retd) Oli Ahmed, coordinator of the 20-party alliance, echoed Moudud's view.

“I told them [alliance partners] in clear terms that it's not certain that they would be offered seats just because they have a party. I also told them that it is not possible for the BNP to set aside a large number of seats to the alliance partners depriving its own leaders," said Oli, also president of Liberal Democratic Party, a 20-party component.

Talking to The Daily Star yesterday, a number of senior leaders of the two alliances said their target was to bag at least 151 seats, the minimum number required to form government.

Two senior leaders of the BNP, a key component of both the alliances, said they were planning to field dummy candidates alongside party candidates in several dozen constituencies.

These candidates will run as independents to ensure presence of more party men in the polling stations.

The Awami League is considering to field dummy contenders in all the 300 constituencies.

Every candidate can appoint one agent in each booth. The polling agents remain present in the booth during voting and counting.

"This will ensure our strong presence in every polling station," a senior BNP leader said.

The party has already urged grassroots leaders and activists to form polling station-based committees to guard some 42,000 voting centres.

Yesterday, Oikyafront leader Dr Kamal Hossain himself urged the supporters to guard polling stations. 

Meanwhile, the BNP high-command asked its grassroots not to engage in any confrontation with law enforcers.

"We urged our grassroots leaders not to fall into any trap by countering police action. We asked them to avoid conflicts till the election," a senior BNP leader said.

MEETING THE ASPIRANTS

The BNP's parliamentary board starts meeting the party nomination-seekers from today.

As many as 4,580 BNP aspirants collected nomination forms in the last five days since Monday. In the 2008 election, 3,186 BNP hopefuls collected nomination forms.

The AL has sold 4,037 nomination forms this time.

Today, the BNP parliamentary board will interview nomination-seekers from Rangpur and Rajshahi divisions.

It will sit with the aspirants from Barisal and Khulna divisions on November 19; those from Chattogram, Cumilla and Sylhet divisions on November 20 and those from Mymensingh, Faridpur and Dhaka divisions on November 21.

At a meeting on Friday night, the BNP standing committee decided that no standing committee member would contest from more than one constituency, sources said.

BNP candidate for Dhaka-1 constituency Khandakar Abu Ashfaq was released hours after he was picked up by police today.

A police team brought Ashfaq to the Dohar Police Station for his own safety this afternoon and later his relatives took him away around 8:00pm, Md Sazzad Hossain, officer-in-charge of the police station, told The Daily Star.

Police picked up Ashfaq while he was conducting election campaign in Joypara Bazar area of Dohar upazila around 5:00pm, said Fahima Hossain Jubli, an activist of the upazila unit BNP, who took part in the campaign.

Later, OC Sazzad Hossain confirmed to The Daily Star that Ashfaq was taken into police custody for his own security.

Elaborating the matter, the OC said some BNP men attacked Awami League activists and vandalised two motorcycles there. As the AL men were preparing to retaliate, police took Ashfaq into custody to avert any untoward incident.

He can leave the police station anytime, the police official said responding to a query.

BNP candidate for Jashore-2 constituency, Abu Shaeed Mohammad Shahdat Hossain, was arrested in connection with a case filed allegedly for creating anarchy in October.

Police arrested Shahdat, who also a former Jamaat-e-Islami lawmaker, from his Purandapur village in Jhikargachha upazila this morning, our Benapole correspondent reports.

He, accused of several cases, will be produced before the court later in the day, said Abdur Razzak, officer-in-charge of Jhikargachha Police Station.

OC Razzak said that they made the arrest as Shahdat did not comply with a High Court order.

Shahdat was asked to surrender before a lower court after his HC bail expired, the OC said.

Earlier, the Election Commission has scrapped the registration of Jamaat-e-Islami, a component of the BNP-led 20-party alliance, making it clear that the party would not be able to contest the upcoming national election.

Despite this, BNP picked up many Jamaat leaders as its candidates to contest the December 30 national election.

And with the BNP’s electoral symbol “Sheaf of Paddy”, Shahdat Hossain is now contesting the polls against Awami League nominated candidate Ranjit Kumar Roya.