Nearly 77 percent of the total votes cast in the 11th national election went to the Awami League’s logo ‘boat’.

The ruling party’s polls symbol commanded 76.80 percent of the 82,255,544 votes cast during the Dec 30 election.

A total of 271 candidates contested with ‘boat’ logo, of which 259 were on the Awami League’s ticket while the remaining were candidates floated by its allies in the Grand Alliance.

According to an analysis of figures compiled by the Election Commission, the ruling party’s logo secured 63,176,114 votes.

Its archrival BNP’s logo ‘paddy sheaf’ bagged 13.51 percent, which means 11,111,729 votes.

A total of 281 candidates, which includes 256 on the BNP’s ticket, contested the polls. As many as 152 paddy sheaf candidates lost their deposit failing to secure one-eighth of votes of the electorate.

The last time the Awami League with its ‘boat’ symbol and the BNP with ‘paddy sheaves’ had faced off was in the ninth national election in 2008. The Awami League had secured 48.04 percent of the total votes in the election and the BNP 32.50 percent.

Before that election, political analysts had said these two major parties’ ‘main vote banks’ always remain between 30 and 35 percent.

But the Awami League fared 72.14 percent of total votes in the BNP-boycotted 10th national election in 2014. A total of 153 candidates, however, won uncontested in that vote.

HM Ershad-led Jatiya Party’s ‘plough’ came in third in the 2018 election securing 5.37 percent votes. Its candidates in 174 seats bagged nearly 4.42 million votes.

Islami Andolan Bangladesh, the party which fielded candidates in 298 seats, followed with 1.53 percent of the votes casted.

The 74 candidates, who contested with ‘sickle’ of the Communist Party of Bangladesh (CPB), got 55,417 votes.

The Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal (JaSaD) fetched 27,474 votes from its eight candidates who contested with ‘torch’.

The 44 candidates, who ran on Socialist Party of Bangladesh (BaSoD) polls logo ‘ladder’, got 17,591 votes followed by the 28 candidates contesting with Biplopi Workers’ Party of Bangladesh logo ‘spade’ securing 18,043 votes.

ASM Abur Rab’s Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal (JSD) with its 15 candidates fetched with its logo ‘star’ got 3,119 votes while the three candidates of Bangladesh National Awami Party secured 5,176 votes.

Rashed Khan Menon’s Workers’ Party of Bangladesh’s ‘hammer’ and Bangladesh Samyabadi Dal (M,L) followed.

At the bottom of the ranking is retired Bangladesh Army general Syed Muhammad Ibrahim’s Bangladesh Kalyan Party, which managed a meagre 55 votes from the single candidate floated in the election.