Tarique Rahman-led BNP ahead in Bangladesh polls with 200+ seats; Jamaat set to become main Opposition

The centre-right Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), led by Tarique Rahman, was on Friday headed for an emphatic victory in the first national elections since the August 2024 ouster of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, with the country’s media reporting it was leading in more than 200 seats in the 300-seat parliament. Bangladesh Election Results 2026 LIVE Updates If the official results endorse these projections, the BNP will be able to form the government with a two-thirds majority, and Rahman would not need the support of smaller parties to support his agenda in the parliament. Jamaat-e-Islami was leading in more than 60 seats, making it the second largest party and poised to become the main Opposition party in Bangladesh. According to media projections Friday morning, the “Yes” vote in the referendum was ahead of the “No” vote. The Election Commission is yet to announce the results. As the counting proceeded throughout Thursday night and continued till Friday morning, it became clear that the people opted for the mainstream political party over the new parties. For the BNP’s main rival, Jamaat-e-Islami, this was a remarkable turnaround for a party that had been a political pariah for a long time. The bellwether for the Islamist party’s victory was seen in the university elections last year, when it won in Dhaka University and other government-run varsities in the country. While the BNP did not issue any statement, it released a couple of photographs of Tarique Rahman, poised to become the prime minister, in a celebratory mode. ## First polls without Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League This election result will not come as a surprise for many in Bangladesh, as Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League is not contesting. Banned from contesting polls following her ouster, it had vacated the political landscape for the BNP and the Jamaat. Although the Jamaat-e-Islami had tied up with the National Citizens Party (NCP), a party floated by student protesters, the arrangement did not appear to have yielded much result, according to the outcomes available so far. In the 300-seat Bangladesh parliament, a party needs 151 for a simple majority and 200 for a two-thirds majority to pass constitutional amendments. On Thursday, the voter turnout was about 48 per cent until 2 pm. The polls closed at 4.30 pm. According to the Bangladesh media, the turnout was about 60 per cent, lower than in 2008, when all parties contested elections held under a caretaker government, and the voter turnout was about 86 per cent. On Thursday, after casting his vote, BNP chief Tarique Rahman said, “Today, the people of Bangladesh will exercise their rights and usher in a democratic Bangladesh… I personally strongly believe that if people across Bangladesh come out today and exercise their rights by voting, Insha Allah, any conspiracy can be thwarted.” Prof Mohammed Yunus, who led the country’s interim government as its chief advisor, had urged voters to make the day of the elections the “birthday of a new Bangladesh”. Each voter in Bangladesh had to vote for an MP candidate and for a referendum on constitutional reforms. The reforms limit the prime minister’s term to 10 years, reinstate the caretaker government, introduce a bicameral parliament, and grant greater independence to the judiciary, among other measures. This made the exercise complicated and challenging, especially in a country of 12.7 crore voters. Shubhajit Roy, Diplomatic Editor at The Indian Express, has been a journalist for more than 25 years now. Roy joined The Indian Express in October 2003 and has been reporting on foreign affairs for more than 17 years now. Based in Delhi, he has also led the National government and political bureau at The Indian Express in Delhi — a team of reporters who cover the national government and politics for the newspaper. He has got the Ramnath Goenka Journalism award for Excellence in Journalism ‘2016. He got this award for his coverage of the Holey Bakery attack in Dhaka and its aftermath. He also got the IIMCAA Award for the Journalist of the Year, 2022, (Jury’s special mention) for his coverage of the fall of Kabul in August 2021 — he was one of the few Indian journalists in Kabul and the only mainstream newspaper to have covered the Taliban’s capture of power in mid-August, 2021. ... Read More