Dhaka, Jan. 27 -- More than 21,000 postal ballots cast by Bangladeshi voters overseas have reached the country ahead of the 13th parliamentary election.

By 10:30am on Tuesday, 21,508 postal ballots had been returned, according to Salim Ahmad Khan, team leader of the Election Commission's OCV-SDI project.

He said a total of 425,788 expatriate voters had cast their ballots, with 370,322 submitting them to post offices or postal drop boxes in their countries of residence.

The Election Commission said it had sent postal ballots to 766,862 expatriate voters ahead of the election scheduled for Feb 12. As of Tuesday morning, 493,920 overseas voters had received their ballots.

The commission has urged expatriate voters to return their ballots...