Bangladesh set for horic polls | World News
3 min readUpdated: Feb 12, 2026 08:15 AM Amid a heavy security blanket, Bangladesh goes to polls in one of the most consequential elections in the country’s hory on Thursday, a year-and-half after massive student and political protests led to the dramatic collapse of the Sheikh Hasina government on August 5, 2024.
Hopes for a free and fair voting — especially since the last elections in 2018 and 2024 faced allegations of widespread rigging the Awami League — is driving the mood on the streets of Dhaka.
What is significant is that there are two votes that each voter has to cast — one for the MP candidate, and the other for a referendum on a constitutional reforms package which limits term to 10 years, reinstates the caretaker government, introduces a bicameral legislature, grants more independence to the judiciary, among other reforms.
The country is under a heavy security blanket, with 1 lakh army personnel and 1.5 lakh police personnel deployed. Schools, colleges and offices have been shut for three days, beginning Wednesday.
With the Hasina-led Awami league banned from the elections, there is widespread expectation that BNP has a shot at power after 20 years in Opposition, while the Jamaat-e-Islami is emerging to be a formidable challenger to it.
While the Indian government had called for “inclusive” elections — which essentially meant the inclusion of the Awami League — Dhaka’s interim government had not acceded to that. Prof Mohammad Yunus, who leads the interim government, urged the voters to make election day the “birthday of a new Bangladesh”.
BNP and Jamaat-e-Islami have been campaigning on their manifestos — both having promised a range of freebies, but also making conciliatory statements. BNP’s manifesto says that the basis of its foreign policy is “Bangladesh Before All”, and doesn’t mention India at all.Story continues below this ad
“’Friend Yes, Master No’- Establishing Relations with Other States Based on Equality and Self-Dignity,” it said, in an oblique reference to India.
Jamaat has also been conciliatory towards India, as its manifesto reads: “Constructive relations with neighboring countries: Peaceful, friendly, and cooperative relations will be built with neighboring and near countries, including India, Bhutan, Nepal, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Maldives and Thailand based on mutual respect and fairness.”
Significantly, neither BNP nor Jamaat has mentioned Pakan in its manifesto document, but has talked about building ties with the “Muslim world”.
Voting for the 300 seats in the parliamentary elections will begin at 7.30 am local time (7 am ) and close at 4.30 pm (4 pm ) on Thursday. Counting will start immediately, within an hour, and broad trends are expected to come in later on Thursday night.
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Shubhajit Roy, Diplomatic Editor at The Indian Express, has been a journal 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 Journal 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 journals in Kabul and the only mainstream newspaper to have covered the Taliban’s capture of power in mid-August, 2021. … Read More
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