Tasnim Jara continues collecting signatures on the second day as an aspiring independent candidate for Dhaka-9 in the upcoming national parliamentary election.

She gathered nearly 3,000 signatures on the first day, while the total number from the second day has not yet been confirmed.

Her husband and the National Citizen Party (NCP) joint convener, Khaled Saifullah, confirmed this to The Daily Star at noon today.

Khaled Saifullah said, “It is not possible to state an exact number at this moment. However, there has been progress in the signature collection process.”

Although the campaign is ongoing, all verification channels have been blocked due to a server outage at the Election Commission. As a result, completing and verifying 4,500 signatures and submitting the nomination form within today has become extremely difficult, according to the NCP leader.

He said, “The collected signatures must be verified according to the voter list provided by the Election Commission. But all five verification systems appear to be inactive on the server. In such a short time, collecting, verifying the signatures, and submitting the nomination form is highly challenging.”

He further added, “We have developed our own system and are trying to verify the signatures using it.”

Election Commission sources state that to run as an independent candidate in Bangladesh, an individual must be a Bangladeshi citizen, at least 25 years old, and enlisted in the voter registry.

The most important requirement is submitting signatures of support from at least 1 percent of the total voters in the constituency, along with affidavits and necessary documents. However, this condition is waived for anyone previously elected as a Member of Parliament.

In line with these requirements, Tasnim Jara began collecting signatures in the Khilgaon area yesterday (Sunday).

She has also alleged to the media that none of the five official channels for obtaining voter numbers—SMS, online services, phone calls, QR code, and the Election Commission’s mobile application—are currently functional.

She said voter numbers are required for verification, but all the options are closed due to server being down, so the entire verification process has come to a halt.