1973 Bangladeshi general election

1973 Bangladeshi general election

← 1970 7 March 1973 (1973-03-07) 1979 →
300 of the 315 seats in the Jatiya Sangsad 151 seats needed for a majority
Registered	35,205,642
Turnout	54.91%
First party Second party Third party   Leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman Serajul Alam Khan Ataur Rahman Khan Party AL JSD BJL Last election 288 seats – 0 seats Seats won 293 1 1 Seat change 5 New 1 Popular vote 13,798,717 1,229,110 62,354 Percentage 73.20% 6.52% 0.33%
Prime Minister before election Sheikh Mujibur Rahman AL Subsequent Prime Minister Sheikh Mujibur Rahman AL

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General elections were held in newly independent Bangladesh on 7 March 1973. The result was a victory for the Bangladesh Awami League, who won 293 of the 300 directly elected seats, including eleven constituencies where they were elected unopposed without a vote.^[1][2] Voter turnout was 55%.

Though the Awami League was already the clear favourite before the elections, Sheikh Mujib's government put major effort into winning every seat. This led to a nearly complete obliteration of the opposition, with most of the leadership of opposition parties failing to win seats, including Major Jalil (Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal), Rashed Khan Menon, Kazi Zafar Ahmed and Aleem al-Razee (National Awami Party (Bhashani)), and Suranjit Sengupta (National Awami Party (Muzaffar)).^[3]