More than a dozen nomination seekers were interviewed yesterday by the BNP nomination board for Feni-1 from where party Chairperson Khaleda Zia was seeking to contest the upcoming national election.

Among them are BNP Vice Chairman Abdul Awal Mintoo and 12 other grassroots leaders. During the interview, they pledged to work together for the party chief, now behind bars in a graft case, if she took part in the election, said party sources.

Senior BNP leaders had collected nomination forms for Khaleda for Feni-1, Bogra-6 and 7 on November 12, the very first day of the sale of nomination forms by the party.

Some other party leaders also bought nomination forms for Bogra-6 and 7 to contest the polls if Khaleda couldn't run in the elections. Earlier, eight lawmaker aspirants gave interview to the nomination board for the two seats.

Khaleda had won the three seats in the 2008 national election. The 20-party alliance, led by the BNP, had boycotted the last parliamentary election on January 5, 2014.

Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal's Shirin Akhtar, Jatiya Party's Nurul Islam Omor and Altaf Ali are the sitting lawmakers from Feni-1, Bogura-6 and Borga-7 respectively.

TARIQUE JOINS NOMINATION PROCESS

BNP acting chairman Tarique Rahman joined the party's nomination process via Skype yesterday, the third day of interviewing the party's nomination seekers.

The nomination board, comprised of BNP standing committee members, interviewed aspirant lawmakers from Chattogram, Cumilla and Sylhet divisions at the BNP chairperson's Gulshan office.

Talking to The Daily Star, BNP Publicity Affairs Secretary Shahid Uddin Chowdhury Annie said Tarique talked to nomination seekers via Skype using a different network technology as the application was blocked.