Former Bangladesh prime minister Sheikh Hasina on Friday alleged that Bangladesh’s February 12 election was a “pre-planned election of deception and farce”, claiming large-scale manipulation of turnout figures and widespread irregularities.In a statement, Hasina said the exercise “will be recorded as a disgraceful chapter in Bangladesh’s democratic history” and described it as “an industrial-scale administrative exercise in manipulating numbers”.Citing data released by the Election Commission, she questioned the turnout percentages announced at different stages of polling. According to the Commission’s first briefing, 14.96 per cent of the 127.7 million registered voters had cast their ballots by 11 am.By noon, turnout was declared at 32.88 per cent — a sharp increase within an hour that, she claimed, translated into an unusually high number of votes per minute across polling stations.Hasina argued that the time-based statistics were inconsistent with ground reports of low voter presence. She said media accounts from various centres indicated that casting a single vote took between one-and-a-half to three minutes, making the rapid surge in turnout “highly abnormal”.The former prime minister also alleged discrepancies in voter participation among prisoners and expatriates, contending that the overall turnout figure of nearly 60 per cent was unrealistic.She further accused authorities of misusing state machinery to promote the “Yes” vote in a referendum held alongside the national election and raised questions over the delay in publishing constituency-wise referendum results.Referring to reports of violence on the eve of polling, Hasina claimed incidents of clashes, ballot irregularities, and pre-stamping of ballots at certain centres. She alleged that polling stations were seized in some areas and that voters found their ballots already cast.Hasina said the Awami League had appealed to the public to peacefully boycott what it termed a one-sided election after being “illegally banned and forcibly excluded”. She alleged that the interim administration led by Muhammad Yunus inflated turnout figures to legitimise the process.Calling for the annulment of the results, Hasina demanded the resignation of the Yunus-led administration and sought fresh election under a neutral caretaker government.