Dhaka, Feb. 12 -- - Polls closed in Bangladesh on Thursday in a landmark general election seen as a direct contest between Tarique Rahman's Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and an 11-party alliance led by the resurgent Jamaat-e-Islami, after voting centers shut teir gates at 4.30 pm.
While the final voting percentage is yet to be declared, vote counting has begun, officials said. Voter turnout reached nearly 48 per cent by 3 pm, they said.
About 127 million people were registered to vote, including around 5 million first-time voters, in the South Asian nation of more than 173 million people. Nearly 44 per cent of the population, some 56 million people, are aged between 18 and 37.
Voters who had entered polling station premises before t...