Election codes strictly prohibit exploitation of religious sentiments for gaining electoral advantage. These rules apply not only to candidates, but also their electoral agents and supporters, which took effect on December 11, the day election schedule was announced. It will remain in force until the gazette notification of the final results.
In practice, however, parties and candidates from across the political spectrum are running paid ads as well as non-sponsored content on Facebook to prove how the rival camps are “bad Muslims.”
Analysis of 50 sponsored ads between December 23, 2025, and February 6, 2026 shows both BNP and Jamaat candidates sling slurs, each calling the other a “munafeq,” the Islamic term referring to a person who outwardly professes faith but is actually a nonbeliever.
The Daily Star also analysed 55 similar religiously provocative posts from 33 Facebook pages, groups and profiles. Thirty of them appear to support the BNP and the Jamaat.
BNP supporters and anti-Jamaat activists are heavily promoting the claim that Jamaat-e-Islami leaders are promising “tickets to Jannah (paradise)” in exchange for votes.
On the other hand, Jamaat and its 11-party alliance partners are claiming their opponents are “seasonal Muslims” who only adopt Islamic attire (beards and tupis) during election season “to deceive voters”.
According to section 16(e) of the National Parliamentary Election Code of Conduct, which governs election conduct on social media, states: “No person shall engage in any activity that exploits religious or ethnic sentiments for the purpose of gaining electoral advantage.”.
Asked about the violation by the parties at a press conference yesterday, Election Commissioner Abul Fazal Md Sanaullah, told The Daily Star, “The Election Commission does not want to engage in these theoretical debates. If someone clearly violates the code of conduct, action is being taken against them.”
He added, “Returning Officers are taking action wherever necessary based on the situation. I don’t think I can make a conclusive comment just by looking at someone’s Facebook post. Besides, you and I both understand our overall political reality and the other undertones within it.”
The “better muslim” debate
On January 28, the official page of Maj General (Rtd.) Sharif Uddin, the BNP-nominated candidate for Rajshahi-1 and former defence adviser to Begum Khaleda Zia, ran a political ad on Facebook. The ad labeled Jamaat’s tactics as deceptive, stating, “Asking for votes in the name of religion or promising tickets to Jannah is clear hypocrisy (Munafiqi); Allah has commanded us to stay away from such deception.”
The ad, which cost between $200 and $299, reached more than a million people. It showed a short rural documentary where a man says his wife was approached by women “preaching Islam” and urging them to vote for a certain party. A cleric is then seen telling the man that Allah is the almighty and there is no relation between faith in Allah and election – a clear reference to Jamaat‑e‑Islami’s door‑to‑door female campaigners.
Just days later on February 3, 2026, the Facebook page “Kazipur Daripalla Samarthak” (Kazipur Daripalla Supporters), which appeared to be campaigning for Maolana Shahinur Alam ran an ad. In the ad, the Sirajganj-1 Jamaat candidate called “seasonal muslims” those individuals who accused Jamaat of “selling Jannah tickets”.
In the ad, which reached 1.25 lakh people, Shahinur mocked his opponents for only adopting Islamic attire like beards and prayer caps for the election season, claiming that “looking at them, there is no way to tell if they are Muslims or followers of another religion.”
In addition to dismissing the BNP, members of the Jamaat-led alliance also spent money on Facebook to provoke voters using religion.
For example, Abm Shirajul Mamun, the Khelafat Majlish candidate and 11-party alliance nominee for Narayanganj-5, ran a provocative ad addressing voters. In the ad, he demands to know why there is no sign of Allah’s law on His own land. The ad carried a caption with an ominous ultimatum, “We will meet on the Day of Judgment.”
In another ad in January, he pledged to implement a “Jiziya” tax for non-Muslims, to exempt them from protecting the sovereignty of the country.
Shirajul ran a total of 18 ads between December and February, many of which were religiously provocative, spending a little more than $270, and reaching 1.8 million people.
Another ad of his, running in early January, pledged to implement a “Jiziya” tax for non-Muslims, to exempt them from protecting the sovereignty of the country.
Other BNP-aligned platforms sponsoring religious provocation include the pages of Shohidul Islam Babul (Faridpur-4) and Khairul Islam Sajib. According to his facebook profile, Sajib is the senior joint convener of Narayanganj District Jubo Dal, and he ran ads on behalf of Narayanganj-3 BNP candidate Azharul Islam Mannan. Surrogate pages such as “Team Jhalakathi” for Rafiul Islam Jamal (Jhalakathi-1), “Voice Of Mirza Abbas” for Mirza Abbas (Dhaka-8) also ran similar ads.
Babul targeted Jamaat by characterising them as communal and disrespectful of minority rights, positioning himself and the BNP as the protectors of a diverse society. Sajib said that Jamaat’s lack of religious sincerity is evident on their campaign leaflets, which omit the phrase “Bismillahir Rahmanir Rahim.”
Pages which spread religious narratives for 11-party alliance and Jamaat-nominated figures include those affiliated with Principal Shahabuddin (Bogra-1), Nurul Islam (Rajbari-1), Abm Shirajul Mamun (Narayanganj-5), Advocate Md Abdul Awal (Jamalpur-4), Shayekh Mufti Shuaib Ibrahim (Gopalganj-2), and Hafez Hazi Muhammad Enayet Ullah (Dhaka-7).
Abdul Awal sponsored an ad speaking about how Muslims have no alternative but to implement Allah’s law on the planet, calling those who disagree as non-believers and “munafeqs” and claiming that if Jamaat had agreed to turn away from Allah’s law, their leaders would not have been hanged to death.
Together, the 50 BNP and Jamaat-affiliated pages targeted an estimated 21.1 million viewers with their political ads, with BNP having a slight edge over Jamaat, drawing 57 percent of the eyeballs.
While BNP led the race when it came to paid ads Jamaat-aligned entities topped the list of non-sponsored posts, disseminating 16 posts classified as religiously provocative from 17 December to 24 January. Pro-BNP actors posted 14, and both sides targeted each other an equal number of times during this period.
Jamaat-aligned entities repeatedly portrayed the BNP as hostile to Islamic symbols such as beards, tupi, hijab and the burqa (1). Through such posts, pro-Jamaat actors have sought to position themselves as the sole guardians of Islamic identity, while questioning the religious credibility of BNP leaders.
For instance, on December 17 last year, a page named Tafsir TV Dhaka shared a video of a religious sermon (waz). The caption directly targeted BNP leader Salahuddin Ahmed, stating: “BNP leader Salahuddin wants the Islam of Medina! Then why doesn’t he have a beard?” (1)
However, not all posts from Jamaat-aligned entities targeted the BNP. Some of them sought to bolster Jamaat’s own islamic credentials. For instance, Uttarbongo Television circulated an AI-generated content, portraying an elderly man who equated political opposition to Jamaat with an affront to the Quran.
Pro-BNP entities also attempted to portray BNP as the “true” Islamic party and attack Jamaat for their alleged religious and political hypocrisy. (1, 2, 3)
The cumulative engagement of these non-sponsored religiously charged contents from the two sides drew 5 lakh likes, comments and shares.
Although pro-Jamaat entities contribute to a third of the total non-sponsored posts, which is only about three percentage points more than pro-BNP ones, they garnered more than half of the total 24-hour engagement (54.46 percent).
Prof Asif Shahan, who teaches Development Studies at the University of Dhaka, said “Bangladeshi politics has undergone a rightward turn. There is a demand-side factor. This shift has pushed Jamaat further to the right in order to cater to voters. In the absence of any strong left or centre-left alternative, the BNP had a chance to move left. But it did the opposite. To capture right-wing votes, it mobilised religiosity to counter Jamaat.”
Contacted, Jamaat-e-Islami alliance member Bangladesh Khelafat Majlish’s Secretary General Jalal Uddin said, “We do not use religion. We do religion-based politics all year long. Whenever elections come near, BNP and the other parties use and abuse religion.”
The media coordinator of Bangladesh Khelafat Majlish Hasan Zunayed called the allegation “completely false.”
BNP Media Cell Convener Moudud Hossain Alamgir Pavel argued that the two verified pages of the party do not push out such content.
“We have two verified pages of the party. Besides these, we do not have any other social media pages. No post using religion or violating the election code of conduct has been made from these pages,” he added.
Methodology
The sponsored political ads were downloaded from Meta’s Ad Library through keyword searches.
The non-sponsored posts analysed were collected by monitoring a watchlist of 615 Facebook pages and profiles known for spreading disinformation and hate speech. Political alignment was assessed by manually reviewing the most recent 30 posts of each actor before data collection began in mid-December. No official party links were examined
For this report, religious provocation was defined as the deliberate use of religious language, symbols, identities, or allegations to inflame emotions, incite hostility, or mobilise support against an individual, group, or authority.
Reporting and research: Zyma Islam, Nourin Sultana, Abdullah Hel Bubun and Tarek Hosen
Note: This story has been updated online to incorporate the methodology as well as comments from experts and political parties.
Source: https://www.thedailystar.net/news/bangladesh/politics/news/pro-bnp-jamaat-actors-play-religion-card-draw-voters-4103396
