Let’s a festive mood prevail on the national election day

The 13th National Parliament Election and Referendum will be held simultaneously across the country today. Polls will continue from 7:30 am to 4:30 pm. Voters are expected to head toward the polls centres in large numbers to exercise their franchise in a festive mood. However, there are still some concerns about the law and order situation.

As many as 12.77 crore eligible voters will determine the country’s new course after 15 years of fallen Awami League rule and two years of interim governance. Votes will be cast across 42,761 polling centres in 64 districts for 300 parliamentary constituencies.

It is expected that there will be a record number of voters in today’s voting festival. Notably, nearly one-fourth of the electorates are first-time voters this time. Many of them played a prominent role in the July-August mass uprising.

This is the country’s first parliamentary elections since former Prime Sheikh Hasina was ousted following her brutal crackdown on widespread student-led protests in 2024, which resulted in the deaths of an estimated 1,400 people. Hasina was forced to flee to India.

Crime analysts say the fragile law and order situation and the spread of illegal firearms are still major concerns or fears in the elections.

The 1,331 police firearms looted from police stations across the country during the 2024 mass uprising which have not been recovered in the past 17 months. 257,144 bullets have not yet been recovered. Police say most of them have gone into the hands of terrorists.

At that time, 5,753 firearms were looted from various police stations, outposts and police establishments. This included 32 deadly weapons belonging to the Special Security Force (SSF) that were looted from Ganabhaban. In addition, a large number of firearms and bullets have been smuggled through various borders. Due to this, the use of illegal firearms has increased throughout the country.

It is known that in the 17 months of the interim government, at least 1,411 incidents of political violence have occurred in the country.

In these incidents, 195 people have been killed and 11,229 injured. And in the 13 months from January 2025 to January of this year, more than three hundred people were shot and hundreds were killed in political violence.

In this election too, there are many high-risk centers in several areas including Chittagong, Khulna, Barisal, and Rangpur. We hope that the joint forces will be able to deal with those risks. People will be able to exercise their voting rights in a safe and festive atmosphere.