<div><span style="font-size: 1rem;"><b>Bangladesh Awami League President and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Monday said Bangladesh has successfully set an example of holding free, fair and impartial polls through Sunday's general election.</b></span><br></div><div><br></div><div>“You have come and witnessed how the people vote in our country. We’ve set a precedent that the election can be free, fair and neutral,” she said.</div><div><br></div><div>The premier made the remarks while exchanging views with local and foreign journalists and election observers at Ganabhaban complex on the occasion of the 12th parliamentary election.</div><div><br></div><div>She said the people elected her party by voting for it in this election. Besides, many independent candidates and some contenders from other parties were elected, she said.</div><div><br></div><div>“The people of this country elected them by voting spontaneously. We’d taken all sorts of measures to conduct the election in fair manners as you witnessed it,” said Hasina.</div><div><br></div><div>She dedicated her party’s landslide victory in Sunday’s election to the people.</div><div><br></div><div>“It’s not my victory. I think it is a victory of the people,” she said amid applause from the audience.</div><div><br></div><div>The AL president said she has been struggling to establish the rights (voting rights) of the people for long.</div><div><br></div><div>Pointing at BNP, Hasina said a party didn’t participate in the election as they are afraid of contesting the direct election.</div><div><br></div><div>“The parties that were born in the hands of military dictators can’t move on their own. They don’t have public support. So, they fear the direct election,” she said.</div><div><br></div><div>Bangabandhu’s youngest daughter Sheikh Rehana, Bangabandhu’s grandchildren Saima Wazed and Radwan Mujib Siddiq Bobby were present at the event. - UNB</div><div><br></div><div>bnbd24/fas&nbsp;</div>