The Election Commission (EC) has declared the Bogura-6 parliamentary constituency vacant, confirmed via a gazette notification to this effect issued on Monday. Earlier, Tarique Rahman submitted a letter to the EC informing of his decision to vacate the Bogura-6 seat.
He was elected from both the Bogura-6 and Dhaka-17 constituencies in the 13th national parliamentary elections.
The gazette, signed by EC Senior Secretary Akhter Ahmed, stated that according to Article 71(2)(a) of the Constitution of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh, a member can represent only one constituency. Tarique Rahman submitted a signed declaration to the Commission on 16 February 2026, stating his intention to represent electoral area 190, Dhaka-17. Consequently, the Bogura-6 seat has been declared vacant from that same date.
According to the Representation of the People Order (RPO), a person can contest elections from a maximum of three constituencies. However, as per the constitution, after being elected, a member of parliament will represent only one constituency. For this reason, if someone wins from multiple seats, they must inform the Election Commission of their decision to retain one seat and vacate the others before taking the oath.
There is a provision that if this decision is not communicated within 30 days of the publication of the election results in the gazette, all the seats won will be declared vacant.
Following the issuance of the gazette declaring the seat vacant, the schedule for a by-election in this constituency will be announced later.
It is worth noting that the Representation of the People Order of 1972 did not have a clear limit on how many seats a candidate could contest. In 1986, through amendments, the maximum limit of seats was fixed to allow a candidate to contest from a maximum of five seats.
Subsequently, in 2008-2009, the RPO was amended to reduce that limit to a maximum of three seats.
