Staff Correspondent:

The Election Commission (EC) has removed the Awami League’s electoral symbol, the Boat, from its website.

According to the EC website on Wednesday (July 16), the party’s registration has been suspended.

The move comes at a time when the National Citizen Party (NCP) demanded the removal of the Awami League’s “Boat” symbol from the list of registered political parties, citing the party’s suspended registration.

NCP also demanded “Shapla” (water lily) as its electoral symbol.

The demands were made during a meeting with Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) AMM Nasir Uddin at the EC headquarters in Dhaka’s Agargaon on 13 July.

Earlier, Election Commissioner Abdur Rahmanel Masud had said that despite the suspension of the Awami League’s registration, the boat symbol will remain in the EC’s schedule of electoral symbols for the time being.

Meanwhile, addressing the EC, LGRD and Cooperatives Adviser Asif Mahmud Shojib Bhuiyan in a Facebook post on Tuesday said, “Under what consideration did you send the cursed ‘Boat’ symbol to the Ministry of Law again for schedule inclusion?

“As a constitutional institution, you have simply shown a thumbs-down to this public uprising. Whose agenda are you implementing, and for whom are you preserving this symbol?”

“Do you want to return the symbol to the refined version of the defeated Awami League of their dreams? As a citizen of Bangladesh, I raise this question to the Election Commission.”