DHAKA: Tariq Rahman’s BNP on Thursday won 120 out of 300 seats and led with a further 55 seats, taking it to the halfway mark of 150 seats as Bangladeshis voted in the first national election in 2024’s “July Uprising” and long-time prime minister Sheikh Hasina pulled away from rival Jamaat-e-Islami, Bangladesh’s largest Islamist party. However, turnout was only 47%. By midnight, India had taken an unbreakable 38-seat lead over the hardline anti-India Jamaat and its allies in the election to replace the caretaker government led by Mohammad Yunus. Yunus took charge after the collapse of the Hasina-led Awami League system. The Awami League was banned from participating in the polls and its symbol, the boat, disappeared from the ballot paper for the first time in 30 years. BNP Chairman Rahman won both the Bogra and Dhaka 17 constituencies, which he contested, and is likely to become the next prime minister, a result that India can accept. The BNP was characterized by an unfriendly stance towards India, as its arch-rival, the Awami League, had a friendly disposition toward New Delhi, but that hostility has now eased. India opened a channel with the BNP when Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar attended the funeral of former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia in Dhaka last year.However, as voting closed at 4:30 p.m., turnout was only 47%, leading analysts to say, “This is not impressive for a full-fledged election in a country where the caretaker government has repeatedly insisted that it will be “free, fair and inclusive, and pave the way for a new Bangladesh.”Calling the general election a “well-planned farce” by the Yunus government, Hasina said: “This extremely low turnout clearly shows that elections without Awami League were widely rejected by the people.”Voter turnout has fallen below 50% only twice in recent years, and in both cases opposition parties did not participate, citing possible rigging by Hasina’s government, analysts said, compared to 40% in the 2014 poll and 42% in the 2024 poll. Voter turnout was reported at 87% in the 2008 general election and exceeded 80% in 2018.Meanwhile, Jamaat-e-Islami Party leader Shafiqur Rahman told reporters on Thursday that his party had no intention of playing “opposition politics” to that end, hinting at its intention to make concessions in the national elections during vote-counting. “We will do positive politics,” Rahman said.Voting was held in 299 seats due to the death of one of the candidates in Sherpur-3 constituency. The vote in the 13th parliamentary election was held in conjunction with a referendum on a complex 84-point reform package that sought public consent to a reform plan called the July National Charter 2025. Voters were “instructed” to vote “yes” if they agreed more strongly with the proposal, or “no” if they opposed it.The twin elections were held in a largely peaceful atmosphere, despite some isolated incidents of violence, amid a series of attacks on minority communities, particularly Hindus, since the fall of Hasina’s government in 2024, with a relatively “low presence” of voters from minority communities.“I would not say that voters from minority communities were absent. But their number would be very small. Their presence was low. We are assessing the situation,” said one prominent minority leader, citing a report compiled by minority organizations across Bangladesh.