Desk Report:

Awami League (AL) leads the election result with a big difference as the counting is underway, the election commission said.

AL got 167 seats, independent candidates won 49 seats while Jatiya Party 10 and Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal won in one seat out of 224 seats in the unofficial results announced by the Election Commission so far.

“We can tell you that Awami League leads the results as the counting is underway,” Election Commission Secretary Mohammad Jahangir Alam said.

He said the final announcement would be made officially after the end of the counting of votes by Monday morning.

Another official familiar with the counting said the Election Commission was tallying the results received from the returning officers and finalized so far tallied results from some 200 constituencies. He, however, did not elaborate.

But according to the trend and scenarios on the field, the ruling Awami League is set to win for the fourth straight term which is expected to install Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina for the fifth tenure as the premier, fourth consecutively.

Soon after the voting was closed Chief Election Commissioner Kazi Habibul Awal said the voters’ turnout was around 40 percent while other than some minor sporadic ones, no major irregularity was reported during the voting.