By-elections to six constituencies ended without any major untoward incident on Wednesday, but voter turnout was very thin, according to Election Commission officials.
The six constituencies which went to polls are Thakurgaon-3, Bogra-4 and 6, Chapainawabganj 2 and 3, and Brahmanbaria-2.
Electronic voting machines (EVMs) were used in the elections, but the EC did not install CCTV cameras in the polling centres.
Ruling Awami League's Ragebul Ahsan Ripu won the Bogra-4 (Sadar) constituency by bagging 49,336 votes against independent candidate Abdul Mannan Akanda.
Ripu is the first Awami League candidate to win the seat after 1973.
In Bogra-4 seat, Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal (JaSoD) candidate AKM Rezaul Karim Tansen defeated his closest rival, Ashraful Islam Alam alias Hero Alam, by 800 votes.
In Thakurgaon-3, Jatiya Party's Hafiz Uddin Ahmed defeated the Awami League's rebel candidate Gopal Chandra Roy by around 34,000 votes. Returning Officer Shahtabuddin announced the results.
In Brahmanbaria-2, Abdus Sattar Bhuiyan, former adviser to BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia, again won Brahmanbaria-2 by-elections as an independent candidate. He secured 40,817 votes, while his closest rival Abdul Hamid Bhasani got 9,500 votes.
District Returning Officer and District Commissioner Shahgir Alam announced the results.
Advocate Sattar was an elected lawmaker from Brahmanbaria and Comilla as a BNP candidate five times, including the 11th parliamentary election held in 2018.
He was one of the seven BNP leaders who resigned from Parliament on December 11 as per the party's decision. Later, he decided to participate in the election as an independent candidate in the same seat and resigned from the BNP.
In Chapainawabganj-3, AL's Md Abdul Odud won the polls against independent candidate Samiul Huq Apel. Odud got 59,638 votes and Apel bagged 55,980 votes.
In Chapainawabganj-3, Awami League candidate Md Abdul Wadud with Boat symbol has been declared unofficially elected.
He got 59,638 votes while his nearest independent candidate Md Samiul Hoque with Apple symbol got 55,980 votes.
Voter turnout 15-20%
During the voting, Chief Election Commissioner Kazi Habibul Awal on Wednesday said the average voter turnout in the by-election in six parliamentary seats could be 15% to 20%.
“It is our assumption, but not final. Though the presence of the voters was low in the polling stations, discipline was maintained at the voting centres," he said while talking to journalists at the Election Commission Bhaban in the capital's Agargaon.
He said the EC collected the updated information from the local administration and the media while monitoring the election, and did not receive information of any remarkable irregularities or vote rigging so far.
Our correspondents Nazmul Huda Nasim from Bogra, Mahasin Kabir from Comilla, and Zakir Mustafiz from Thakurgaon contributed to the report
