Bangladesh EC registers NCP as political party, allots ‘Shapla Koli’ symbol

The National Citizen Party (NCP), an offshoot of Students against Discrimination (SAD) that led last year’s uprising which toppled Sheikh Hasina’s government, has been officially registered as a political party in Bangladesh ahead of the February general election.

The Election Commission (EC) has allotted the NCP the electoral symbol ‘Shapla Koli’ (water lily bud), according to a gazette notification issued on Monday (November 17), the same day Hasina was handed the death sentence in absentia by Bangladesh’s International Crimes Tribunal (ICT) for “crimes against humanity” over her government’s crackdown on student-led protests.

The EC “has registered NCP as a political party until further orders”, the State-run BSS news agency reported on Tuesday, citing the notification.

The NCP had earlier sought ‘Shapla’ (water lily) as its symbol; however, the request was rejected because it is not among the 115 electoral symbols approved under existing regulations.

The “Shapla” is also the national emblem of Bangladesh.

Following the rejection in September, the NCP warned of protests and accused the authorities of denying it a fair choice. However, earlier this month, the party backtracked from its previous stance and accepted ‘Shapla Koli’ as its official electoral symbol.

The NCP had said it plans to field candidates in all 300 constituencies in the upcoming parliamentary election.

The party’s registration comes as Bangladesh heads for a tense election season marked by political uncertainty and growing public attention on new and emerging players.

At a press briefing in Dhaka on Tuesday, Senior Secretary of the EC Secretariat Akhtar Ahmed said the commission had started working on the registration of 143 political parties.

In the first stage of review, he said, it rejected the applications of 121 parties. The EC on Tuesday published the final voter list ahead of the parliamentary polls. The total number of registered voters stands at 127,695,183. Among them, 64,814,907 are male voters, 62,879,042 females, and 1,234 transgenders.