Former NCP leader Tasnim Zara says she will appeal the returning officer’s decision to reject her nomination as an independent candidate for Dhaka-9, after scrutiny found two of her listed proposers were not voters in the constituency.
In a video message on her verified Facebook page and a written statement shared with local media on Saturday, Zara confirmed the appeal process “has already begun.” The returning officer, Additional Divisional Commissioner (Revenue) Md. Azmal Hossain, said the nomination was cancelled because, among 10 sampled proposers and supporters, two were found not to be registered in Dhaka-9—though the total signatures submitted exceeded the required threshold.
Under the Representation of the People Order, independents must file a support list equal to 1% of the electorate. Zara’s camp says they submitted about 5,000 signatures—well above the minimum—with the election office verifying a random sample of 10. According to Zara, one signer lives in Khilgaon, which straddles Dhaka-9 and Dhaka-11, and believed they were a Dhaka-9 voter; another had updated their address years earlier but still carried an NID showing Dhaka-9. Her team argues both cases reflect database discrepancies beyond the signers’ control.
Zara’s husband, Khaled Saifullah, said the campaign has collected letters from the two signers explaining the mismatch and will file the appeal on the next working day. He stressed that eight of the 10 sampled entries were confirmed valid and that the submission comfortably met the 1% rule.
Zara, a physician who studied at Dhaka Medical College and the University of Cambridge, resigned from the National Citizens’ Party (NCP) on December 27 over the party’s seat-sharing with Jamaat-e-Islami and declared an independent run in Dhaka-9. She filed her nomination on December 29 after gathering signatures in roughly a day and a half.
The Election Commission had earlier finalized the voter list for the upcoming 13th parliamentary polls but says independents may still be added subject to legal requirements. Zara maintains she complied with those rules and is seeking to have her candidacy reinstated through the appeals process.