The 11th parliamentary election has already seen thousands of nomination-seekers -- from retired public servants, businessmen, actors, singers, cricketers, footballers, labour leaders to bona fide politicians -- lining up to become a lawmaker.

In the midst of this, an employee of an agro-seed shop in Ulipur Bazar added his name to that versatile list. Delwar Hossain, sought nomination from the Communist Party of Bangladesh as candidate for Kurigram-3 (Ulipur).

However, the 59-year-old's participation in the polls is subject to the approval of the eight-party Left Democratic Alliance, where CPB is a key component.

Delwar proudly claimed that he would be the lone candidate representing the genuine working class in the national polls.

Speaking to this newspaper, Delwar -- the president of Ulipur Upazila Khetmajour Samity and a member of its central committee --

said, “We have no real labour representative in our national parliament. Those in the parliament are labour leaders, not labourers or farmhands. As a result, they do not understand us and our problems.” 

Involved with the CPB since 1980, Delwar has already launched his pre-election campaign with a black-and-white leaflet using the symbol hay, along with the popular party slogan on it. He was also working hard to collect the money he needed to submit his nomination papers to the Election Commission (EC).

“As I am a poor labourer, I am collecting fees from our party men and common people for submitting the nomination paper. I shall try to submit it by November 24,” said Delwar.

As of now, he needs Tk 20,000 as fees to submit his nomination paper to the EC and another Tk 11,000 to collect the disc containing the voter database of Kurigram-3 constituency, which has been a strong hold of Jatiya Party.