00:00Voting just took place today in Bangladesh.
00:02Considering the percentage, how do you think that people responded to the democratic process?
00:08The voting concluded India time at 4.30, sorry 4, and given the spontaneity of turnout,
00:18in quite a number of centres, people were brought inside the centres, particularly women,
00:28which is why the voting went beyond 5, as I have gathered.
00:34What was striking was the most peaceful manner, apart from some stray incidents, violence in some parts.
00:42It was rather peaceful, particularly those who are on the ground,
00:45including the journalists who have gone from India and abroad.
00:49They have broadly said that this is one of the striking things.
00:52And voter turnout, particularly of women and girls, even elderly,
00:58many of them who came say that we are voting possibly for the last time in our lifetime.
01:04That was noteworthy.
01:06The mobilisation, we had close to, I think, 900,000 security personnel mobilised.
01:14The role of military was equally noteworthy, especially in facilitating as also immediately intervening
01:24wherever there would have been some squabble or people were indulging in altercation and all that,
01:29which might have led to some incidents.
01:31So that's why hardly, unlike the previous times, any difficult episode emerged.
01:40And as I gather from Election Commission sources, informally, as of this hour,
01:47it's possibly above 60% turnout, which means of the 12, 127 million registered voters,
01:58that means over 7.5 crore people have voted.
02:02I guess that's for anyone to understand what does it mean.
02:06Let's also understand it's a new demography which is voting.
02:11Demographic figures show that 14% of the population is above 55.
02:20Obviously, you know that Gen Z is known to,
02:22but what it means is that 60% of the population being below 35
02:28and nearly one-third voting for the first time,
02:31casting the votes for the first time,
02:33makes it quite an interesting, open election.
02:38The campaign, I must say, preceding the voting, today's voting,
02:43spanning over 19 days,
02:45has been remarkably peaceful by any measure.
02:52Thank you so much.
02:58You
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