The polling in Bangladesh's 9th Parliamentary election ended at 4 p.m. (1000 GMT) Monday peacefully, Election Commission spokesman SM Assaduzzaman said.

A festive atmosphere was noticed in all the 35,216 polling centers across the country, long queue of voters were seen in many polling stations at 3 p.m., one hour before the end of polls.

Counting of ballots will start immediately after the end of the polls in the 300-seat parliamentary elections out of which elections for 299 seats were held Monday with the election for the other seat was postponed to be held on Jan. 12 next year due to the death of one candidate.

Chief Election Commissioner Shamsul Huda told Xinhua on Monday the final result of the elections will be available on Tuesday morning.

(Xinhua News Agency December 29, 2008)