Dhaka, Bangladesh – The fast-paced, rhythm-driven song’s lyrics could come across as commentary about life in rural Bangladesh.
“The days of boat, the sheaf of paddy and the plough have ended; the scales will now build Bangladesh”, the words go.
In reality, though, the song is a political anthem supportive of Bangladesh’s Jamaat-e-Islami party that went viral on Facebook, YouTube, Instagram and TikTok in early November.
It speaks of the symbols of parties that have governed Bangladesh that it argues Bangladeshis now want to reject: The boat is the symbol of the Awami League (AL) of former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who was ousted by a student-led uprising in August 2024; the sheaf of paddy is the symbol of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP); and the plough, the election symbol of the Jatiya Party, a former ally of Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League, founded by a military ruler in the 1980s.
The Jamaat’s symbol is scales.
On February 12, the country is scheduled to vote in what is shaping up to be a direct contest between the BNP and a Jamaat-led alliance. On-the-ground campaigning starts on Thursday, January 22. But online, parties have been battling it out for months, trying to attract Gen Z voters who played a key role in overthrowing Hasina, and now could play a pivotal role in determining who forms the next government.
The pro-Jamaat song’s online popularity, for instance, sparked a frenzied race among parties to launch songs in an election climate when mass rallies are no longer the only way to reach millions of voters: Social media is often as powerful a tool.
HAL Banna, a London-based filmmaker who composed and sang the pro-Jamaat song, told Al Jazeera it was initially produced for a single candidate in Dhaka. “When people started sharing it, other candidates realised it connected with ordinary voters and began using it,” he said.
The BNP came up with its campaign song, its lyrics suggesting that the party – only marginally ahead of the Jamaat in opinion polls – puts the country before itself. “Amar agey amra, amader agey desh; khomotar agey jonota, shobar agey Bangladesh [Us before ourselves, the country before us; people before power, Bangladesh above all],” the song says.
The National Citizen Party, formed by students at the forefront of the anti-Hasina protests in 2024, also came up with its song that went viral.
But music has been only one part of a wider digital push.
Short, dramatised videos, emotional voter interviews, policy explainers and satire have also flooded social media.
This year, the online war is bigger than a parliamentary contest alone.
On February 12, voters will also decide on a referendum on the July National Charter, a reform package the interim government led by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus says must be endorsed to institutionalise changes in the state institutions introduced after the 2024 July uprising.
Why online matters
According to the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission, Bangladesh had about 130 million internet users as of November 2025, accounting for roughly 74 percent of its estimated 176 million population.
According to a report released in late 2025 by DataReportal, a global digital research and analytics platform report, the country has approximately 64 million Facebook users, nearly 50 million YouTube users, 9.15 million Instagram users and more than 56 million TikTok users aged 18 and above. X, by contrast, has a relatively small footprint with about 1.79 million users.
That digital reach, say analysts, helps explain why political parties are investing heavily in online narratives.
Election Commission data show that 43.56 percent of voters are aged between 18 and 37, many of them first-time voters or young Bangladeshis who effectively felt disenfranchised under Hasina. National elections in 2013, 2018 and 2024 were marred with irregularities, crackdowns on opposition leaders and activists, and boycotts that