Bangladesh deployed more than nine lakh security personnel across the country as the general election and referendum for the July Charter started on Thursday (February 12, 2026).

Bangladesh polls LIVE updates

The election process is unfolding during four days long national holiday, which was declared to ensure the peaceful conduct of polling that started at 7.30 a.m. Voting will continue till 4.30 p.m.

Chief Election Commissioner A.M.M. Nasir Uddin addressed the nation on Wednesday (February 11, 2026) night and appealed to all parties to accept the result of the election without resorting to violence. However, reports have poured in from multiple locations across the country of activists of Jamaat-e-Islami getting caught with bundles of cash.  The incidents came a day after a Jamaat leader was caught with nearly Taka 74 lakh in north Bangladesh.

Among top leaders, Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir of Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) cast his ballot at Thakurgaon in north Bangladesh. BNP Chairman Tarique Rahman is contesting from Dhaka 17 in Gulshan neighbourhood of the capital, and Jamaat-e-Islami’s leader (Ameer) Dr. Shafiqur Rahman is contesting in Dhaka-15 in Mirpur locality. National Citizen Party’s Nahid Islam, who is being supported by the 11 party alliance led by Jamaat-e-Islami is contesting from Dhaka – 11 constituency.

A significant contest will take place in Dhaka-8, where BNP’s strongman Mirza Abbas is being challenged by National Citizen Party’s Nasiruddin Patowary. Dhaka-8 is the seat where young Islamist Sharif Osman Hadi was planning to contest before he was shot and killed in December. Mr. Patowary’s challenge is significant as he is being supported by the 11-party alliance led by Jamaat-e-Islami.

Bangladesh’s previous election was in January 2024, when the chief opposition BNP boycotted. Sheikh Hasina of Awami League formed a government after the election, but was overthrown in a public uprising in July-August 2024.

Awami League of Sheikh Hasina is not contesting the polls as it remains banned, but the party’s stronghold Gopalganj was rocked by violence overnight, with at least ten cocktail explosives being hurled as multiple groups clashed. Both BNP and Jamaat-e-Islami have accused Awami League of rigging the previous three elections of Bangladesh in 2024, 2018 and in 2014.

For the first time in its independent history, Bangladesh will allow postal ballots in the upcoming election scheduled for February 12, 2026. The Election Commission of Bangladesh has started the facilitation process with the help of international postal services that would allow voters to mail the ballots on time to be counted after physical voting ends in Bangladesh.

The process will be carried out through Postal Vote BD App that the voters will have to download first. Next they will be required to create personal accounts, login to their accounts, and add details like passport number and a selfie. Once these steps are completed, the voters will receive ballot papers that they have to drop at their nearest post box to be flown to their respective constituencies. Bangladeshi officials said that to allow sufficient time for the process, voter registration started on November 26, 2025 and will close at 11.29 p.m., January 5, 2026, allowing sufficient time for distribution and collection of postal ballots.

According to the Election Commission of Bangladesh, more than 1.2 million Bangladeshi citizens — both living at home and abroad — have registered already to cast votes through postal ballot system, and out of the total, merely 10,953 voters are still in queue for approval. Almost half of registered voters are based in Bangladesh and the rest are based abroad. 

Bangladesh is one of the largest exporters of manpower from South Asia and has a significant number of its citizens stationed in the Gulf region. Expectedly, Saudi Arabia has the largest number of registered expat Bangladeshi voters with 2.6 lakh Bangladeshi citizens who are expected to send in their postal ballots home for the election. United Kingdom has more than 28,000 Bangladeshi voters and United States has 29,170 registered Bangladeshi postal ballot voters. Qatar, Malaysia, Oman, United Arab Emirates and Kuwait are some of the other countries with significant number of expat Bangladeshi postal ballot voters.

According to the Election Commission of Bangladesh, the lowest number of registrations took place in Colombia and Cameroon, where only one Bangladeshi voter registered for a postal ballot in each country. In South Asia, India has 297 Bangladeshi citizens enrolled for postal ballots, and in Pakistan, 29 registrations have taken place. An official from Bangladesh explained that the use of postal ballots has become easier with the advent of digital apps and faster postal services as the voters do not have to bear the postal expenses once they register through the Election Commission app.

Bangladesh announced on Wednesday (November 5, 2025) cash rewards to surrender machine guns, rifles and pistols looted during an uprising last year, hoping to collect hundreds of weapons ahead of key elections.

An estimated 6,000 firearms were stolen from police armouries during the deadly August 2024 unrest that toppled the hardline rule of then-Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.

More than 1,300 are still reported as missing, police spokesman AHM Shahadat Hossaine told AFP.

Police issued a list of rewards for their return, ranging from just over $4,000 for a light machine gun to $800 for an assault rifle, and $400 for a shotgun or pistol. Cash would also be paid for ammunition.

“Bangladesh Police guarantee full confidentiality”, Mr. Hossaine said, urging people to hand them in.

Bangladesh has been in political turmoil since Hasina fled into exile last year, and political parties are jostling for power ahead of polls slated for February 2026.

Dhaka-based rights group Odhikar says political violence since the uprising has killed nearly 300 people.

More than 150 others have been killed in mob violence, according to Odhikar.

Investigators, meanwhile, continue to probe a devastating fire that tore through the cargo complex of the country’s main international airport on October 18.

Bushra Islam, a senior official at Biman Bangladesh Airlines, told AFP that a team had found the smashed lock of a vault which had survived the fire — a strongroom used to store arms, as well as valuable items such as gold and diamonds.

Islam said it was not clear “how many arms have gone missing, if any”.

A senior police officer, speaking on condition of anonymity, said a team had inspected the vault after the fire.

“Days later, the vault was found open,” he said.

The government said it had requested foreign experts to help examine the cause of the blaze.

Bangladesh’s leader has warned that any deviation from planned elections would be “extremely dangerous”, as violent political rivalries deepen a year after the overthrow of longtime Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.

The warning comes after protests in the South Asian nation, which left a key leader hospitalised, with parties vying for power ahead of the first elections since the uprising.

Arguments between parties have escalated, including over who will be able to contest in the polls, scheduled for February, as well as the bid by interim leader Muhammad Yunus to push through a raft of democratic reforms.

“The Chief Adviser said there is no alternative to an election,” Mr. Yunus’ press secretary Shafiqul Alam said late on Sunday. “Any deviation from it would be extremely dangerous for the country.”

Mr. Yunus, the 85-year-old Nobel Peace Prize winner who has been leading the caretaker government as its chief adviser since the August 2024 uprising, held rounds of meetings with key parties on Sunday.

He met on Monday with army chief General Waker-Uz-Zaman, who he thanked for the “continued contribution to the maintenance of law and order”.

Bangladesh has a long history of military coups and the army retains a powerful role.

Uz-Zaman, according to a government statement, said he backed the government, and “urged the chief adviser not to pay attention to rumours”.

Reforms

A key recent source of contention is whether the Jatiya Party, seen as a former ally of Hasina, should be allowed to take part in elections.

On Friday, violent clashes erupted in Dhaka when the Gono Odhikar Parishad party held a rally demanding it be banned.

Gono Odhikar Parishad party leader Nurul Haque Nur was badly beaten when the police and military sought to stop the rally.

Jamaat-e-Islami, the main Islamist party in the Muslim-majority nation of 170 million people, has also demanded Jatiya be excluded. Hasina’s Awami League has already been banned.

Violent protests were reported in universities, including at Chittagong University, where around a hundred students were injured on Saturday.

Parties are yet to agree on efforts by Yunus to create a charter for democratic reforms.

Yunus has previously said he inherited a “completely broken down” system of public administration, and that it required a comprehensive overhaul to prevent a return to authoritarian rule.

A 28-page draft proposes a two-term limit for prime ministers, and the expansion of presidential powers.

Parties are yet to agree on the proposed reforms — and whether they would be legally binding, or even override the existing constitution.