Staff Correspondent:

A total of 144 political parties, including National Citizen Party (NCP), have failed to pass the Election Commission’s (EC) preliminary scrutiny for registration as new political parties.

The EC has granted these parties an additional 15 days to submit missing documents and information.

EC officials said that none of the newly applying parties met the necessary requirements during the initial screening.

“Following the preliminary verification, we found minor discrepanciesin the applications of all the 144 parties,” EC Additional Secretary KM Ali Newaz told on Tuesday afternoon.

He added, “In the first phase, letters will be sent to 62 parties. The rest will be contacted in the next phases. The parties must address the discrepancies within 15 days.”

On April 20, the EC issued circular inviting applications for new party registrations.

At the request of 46 political parties, including the NCP, the deadline was extended to June 22.

In total, 147 applications were received, though three parties submitted duplicate applications.

The EC has been registering political parties under the Representation of the People Order, 1972 since 2008. Currently, there are 51 registered political parties in the country.

A party must meet at least one of the three criteria to qualify for registration. They would need to win at least one seat with its electoral symbol in any parliamentary election, secure at least five percent of the total votes cast in a constituency in a national election, or have a functional central office, a central committee, and offices in at least one-third of the districts or 100 upazilas or metropolitan areas, with a minimum of 200 voters as members in each upazila.

During the 12th national election in January 2024, 93 parties applied for registration. Following preliminary screening, the EC conducted field verifications for 12 parties, including the Gono Odhikar Parishad and AB Party.

Of those 12, only two — Bangladesh Nationalist Movement (BNM) and Bangladesh Supreme Party (BSP) — were granted registration after resolving several objections.