As much as 74% of candidates, who contested the 12th national parliamentary election held on 7 January 2024, had lost their security deposits.
A total of 1,969 candidates had contested in 7 January elections. Of them, 1,454 candidates from 27 political parties as well as independents lost their security deposits, according to an Election Commission (EC) report.
The EC revealed this information after compiling field-level reports of the last parliamentary election.
Security deposit is confiscated by the EC if one-eighth of the votes cast in a constituency are not received by a candidate. In the parliamentary elections, a candidate has to give a security deposit of Tk25,000. In this way, the EC earned a total of Tk2.9 crore.
A candidate can withdraw this capital from the state treasury if it is not lost due his or her extremely poor voting performance. The deposits of all candidates of 23 political parties were been confiscated this time.
The Jatiya Party nominated candidates in 263 seats, but they also lost security deposits in 236 seats. Trinamool BNP had contested in 135 constituencies and all their candidates lost their security deposits.
