As the dust settles on the controversial parliamentary polls on Thursday, images and videos of turnout from polling stations nationwide reveal a stark reality: ordinary voters largely stayed away, heeding the Awami League’s boycott call and rejecting what critics have dubbed a “staged farce” under interim leader Muhammad Yunus.
Centres stood eerily empty, with security personnel like Ansar members idling, and BGB forces even spotted playing cricket to pass the time. This mass abstention, coupled with viral evidence of pre-dawn ballot stuffing and impersonation fraud, has shredded the election’s credibility, while the Election Commission (EC) faces accusations of peddling inflated turnout figures to deceive the international community.
Ghostly Polling Centres
From the capital to remote upazilas, footage shared on X (formerly Twitter) and Facebook captured desolate scenes. In Dhaka-14’s Mirpur University centre, a journalist’s video showed no voters in sight, directly contradicting the EC’s claims of robust participation. Similar emptiness plagued Habiganj-1’s Gauripur Upazila (Bokainagar Union), where voter presence failed to pick up even as the afternoon wore on, per DBC News reports. In Brahmanbaria-2, Gopalganj (as seen in BBC Bangla clips), Sirajganj-2 (where mosques blared announcements begging for voters), and Rangpur (centres emptying after noon), the story was the same: sparse or zero attendance.
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One viral post from Dhaka-13’s Residential Model College centre claimed only five votes had been cast by midday. EU observers, arriving with high hopes, toured vacant booths and left disillusioned, highlighting how the people’s rejection undermined Yunus’s media hype. Newspapers like Kaler Kantho reported a meagre 5-10% turnout in Dhaka’s first three hours, yet EC officials allegedly inflated figures in afternoon briefings to mask the embarrassment.
Election Commission’s ‘Lies’
The EC’s data drew sharp ridicule: 14.96% turnout from 32,000 centres between 7:30am and 11am, surging to 32.88% from 32,789 centres by noonโimplying an impossible 17.92% spike (over 2 crore votes) in just one hour.
Exiled former PM Sheikh Hasina slammed these as “fabricated” to prop up a “voter-less, illegal farce,” echoing broader claims of systemic manipulation. By evening, officials pegged overall turnout at 47-49%, but ground reports and viral rigging videos suggested it was artificially boosted through fraud.
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This mirrors patterns from earlier reports: In Bhluka (Mymensingh-11), a quiet morning with low voter presence gave way to afternoon ballot stamping frenzies, including CCTV-captured youths stuffing boxes. Nationwide, symbols like BNP’s paddy sheaves and Jamaat’s scales were allegedly pre-sealed in bulk before dawn, filling boxes in districts like Narayanganj, Jhenaidah, Noakhali, and Sylhet.
Rigging Rampant
The boycott’s success was compounded by irregularities that deterred even willing participants. Thousands arrived to find their votes already castโa hallmark of overnight stuffing.
In Nilphamari-2, a voter discovered agents had marked his ballot while he waited in line; in Rajshahi, 75-year-old Abdul Malek was told his vote was done. Abdus Salam in Bidaishulbani Mauza (Madania Madrasa) faced the same escalating complaints to the police, the military, and the EC.
Women’s booths weren’t spared: In Bhola, an agent of BNP candidate Barrister Andaleeve Rahman Partha was accused of infiltrating a female booth to cast fake votes, exposing security lapses. Minority voters, like Hindus in Banshkhali’s Kalipur Ejharul Haque High School, were outright barred, with one woman tearfully questioning, “Are we not human?” Pre-stamped ballots handed outโoften with “scale” or “paddy sheaf” symbolsโfurther fueled fraud claims.
Clashes between BNP and Jamaat supporters in Mirpur-10 and Sylhet added to the volatility, amid mutual rigging accusations. In Patuakhali, broken CCTVs enabled impersonation, while elderly voters like 92-year-old Chhaya found their names erased from lists.
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