No, Jamaat did not get more votes than BNP in Lalmonirhat-2
A photo of a ‘message sheet’ is being circulated on Facebook, raising allegations of election engineering in the Lalmonirhat-2 constituency, claiming that the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) candidate was declared victorious even after receiving fewer votes than the Jamaat-e-Islami candidate.
Lalmonirhat-2 constituency comprises two upazilas, or sub-districts—Kaliganj and Aditmari. A fact-check shows that the message sheet lists the results of 83 centers in Kaliganj, where Jamaat’s Md Firoz Haider received 65,615 votes, while BNP’s Rokon Uddin Babul received 64,812 votes. However, results from all 155 centers put Babul in the lead.
The image of the message sheet was shared on the Barrister Shahriar Kabir Fan Club Facebook group, alleging election result manipulation. It has been shared more than 5,400 times so far, while some Facebook users have posted the photo echoing the same claim (1, 2).
A user wrote in Bengali: “The scales (Jamaat’s electoral symbol) have won, but the sheaf of paddy (BNP’s symbol) has been declared the winner! ‘Lailatul declaration’ [sic]… This is how the rigging will continue. Is 64,000 bigger than 65,000? In Lalmonirhat 02 constituency, the scales bagged more votes, but the sheaf of paddy has won. This is how the results are being announced across the country.”
In a post that went viral, a user commented in Bengali, “The Election Commission should take responsibility for this vote theft.” Another wrote, “Gather message sheets from all the centers at the Election Commission office. If they accept and count the votes again, then Alhamdulillah (an Arabic phrase meaning ‘All praise is due to Allah’) [sic]. If they don’t, then take to the streets with the people.”
We found that the Lalmonirhat-2 constituency consists of two upazilas—Kaliganj and Aditmari. DismissLab collected the constituency’s final results sheet and the upazila-level results sheets. There were 83 polling centers in Kaliganj and another 72 in Aditmari.
While Jamaat-e-Islami candidate Md. Firoz Haider was ahead by 800 votes across the polling centers in Kaliganj, BNP candidate Rokon Uddin Babul led the overall vote count in Aditmari.
Across Aditmari’s 72 polling centers, the Jamaat-e-Islami candidate received 50,624 votes, compared to 58,531 votes for the BNP candidate. In other words, the BNP candidate outpolled the Jamaat candidate by 7,907 votes in Aditmari.
An analysis of the final results transmission sheet for the Lalmonirhat-2 constituency shows that the Jamaat-e-Islami candidate received a total of 117,252 votes, while the BNP candidate secured 123,946 votes. The same results were reported by multiple media outlets(1, 2).
In other words, after the results from Aditmari’s polling centers were added, the BNP candidate moved ahead of the Jamaat candidate in the overall vote count for Lalmonirhat-2.
There were 273,662 valid votes in Lalmonirhat-2. The viral message sheet only counts 146,068 votes, all from Kaliganj.
Therefore, the claim that Jamaat got more votes but lost in Lalmonirhat-2 is false.
