Top leaders of the four-party alliance will sit soon to finalise their strategy for the upcoming election and they will disclose nominees' names of their party or alliance to contest the election afterwards.

"We will decide on it later," BNP Secretary General Abdul Mannan Bhuiyan yesterday told the reporters when asked if BNP would participate in the upcoming election individually. However, a number of senior BNP leaders said the high command is most likely to approve individual participation of four-party alliance partners in the election, said the sources.

On the last day of nomination withdrawal yesterday, the BNP secretary general could not provide the list of the four-party alliance candidates either. "You will see the names in newspapers tomorrow or as early as possible." Although a few days back, he told the reporters that BNP would disclose names of their aspirants on the last day of nomination withdrawal.

According to the sources, the parties in the four-party alliance will not contest the election jointly to portray that many different political parties are taking part in the election process. The alliance also decided that Jamaat would file nominations for around 137 parliamentary seats.

BNP sources said if the AL-led alliance boycotts the election, BNP would contest more than 200 parliamentary seats individually while Jamaat could contest at least 50 seats. BJP, JP and a few other political parties would share rest of the seats in the next parliament if they agree to participate.

Ali Ahsan Mujahid, Secretary General of Jamaat told the reporters yesterday that around 150 Jamaat leaders filed nominations. He also said they would finalise their strategy to contest the election later.

Sources said BNP candidates filed nominations in every parliamentary seat. After the 14-party candidates filed nomination papers, the BNP secretary general asked rebel candidates to withdraw their nominations, but most Jamaat candidates did not withdraw their nomination papers defying directives of the party high-ups.