UPDATE 1-Hasina alliance takes strong lead in Bangladesh poll

(Adds Hasina urges supporters to wait to celebrate, updates count)

By Anis Ahmed

DHAKA, Dec 30 (Reuters) - An alliance headed by Bangladesh's former prime minister Sheikh Hasina has taken a strong early lead in unofficial results from parliamentary polls, as her spokesman urged followers to wait for official returns before celebrating.

Election officials said on Tuesday that Hasina's "Grand Alliance" had won 137 out of 164 seats counted so far in the 300-seat parliament, with 20 going to a group led by Begum Khaleda Zia, another former prime minister and rival for power, and seven to candidates outside the two alliances.

The Monday parliamentary vote returned Bangladesh, a country of more than 140 million people, to democracy after two years of emergency rule imposed by an army-backed government.

"Our leader Sheikh Hasina has appealed to her party and supporters not to stage victory marches or engage in any kind of celebration until the final results are announced by the election commission," her spokesman Abul Kalam Azad said in a TV broadcast.

Past elections have often seen street confrontations between candidates' supporters.

So far, this election has mostly avoided the problems of previous polls, which were marred by violence and accusations of vote-rigging.

"The election ended in a very peaceful environment and I never saw such a congenial atmosphere. The turnout was tremendous," Taleya Rehman, executive director of monitoring group Democracy Watch, told Reuters.