Bangladesh Elections: Who can vote in the landmark poll today? Eligibility and other rules explained

Bangladesh is holding its crucial parliamentary elections today, 18 months after an interim government took charge following the collapse of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's 15-year-old regime in widespread nationwide protests.

The Election Commission has made elaborate security arrangements, deploying nearly one million security personnel - the largest-ever in the country's electoral history. The 13th Parliamentary elections are being held simultaneously along with a referendum on a complex 84-point reform package.

The contest is mainly between the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and its former ally, Jamaat-e-Islami, in the absence of Hasina's now-disbanded Awami League. Chief Adviser Muhammad Yunus' interim government last year disbanded the Awami League and barred it from contesting the polls.

A total of 1,755 candidates from 50 political parties and 273 independents are contesting in the election. The BNP has fielded the highest number of 291 candidates. There are 83 female candidates.

"All of you should exercise your respective voting rights consciously...," Chief Adviser Yunus said in a message on Wednesday.

Voting will be held at 42,659 centres. Official data showed that first-time voters accounted for about 3.58 per cent of the nearly 127 million voters.

Opinion polls have positioned BNP as the frontrunner, with its chief, Tarique Rahman, back from 17 years of exile in the UK, leading the charge for forming the next government.

Voter eligibility is governed by the Electoral Roll Act of 2009, which provides that a voter has the right to obtain a National Identity Card of the specified class, following the prescribed procedures and upon payment of the required fees. The Bangladesh Election Commission issues only one National Identity Card to each citizen. To receive the National Identity Card, each citizen must register their identity.

This time, the country introduced postal voting for expatriates. For the first time, nearly 800,000 expatriate Bangladeshis registered with the poll body will be able to vote through an IT-based postal ballot system.

-The elections to Parliament shall be on the basis of adult franchise.

-A person shall be entitled to be enrolled on the electoral roll for a constituency delimited for the purpose of election to the Parliament, if he -

(a) is a citizen of Bangladesh;

(b) is not less than eighteen years of age;

(c) does not stand declared by a competent court to be of unsound mind ;

(d) is or is deemed by law to be a resident of that constituency ; and

(e) has not been convicted of any offence under the Bangladesh Collaborators (Special Tribunals) Order, 1972.

(With agency inputs)