Dhaka braces for return of BNP leader ahead of polls

NEW DELHI

After nearly 18 years in exile in the United Kingdom, Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) acting chairman Tarique Rahman will return to Dhaka on Thursday (December 25, 2026), formally marking the official launch of the party’s campaign for the February 12 general election. 

According to BNP sources, Mr. Rahman is scheduled to address supporters and visit his ailing mother, former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, who remains hospitalised in the capital. 

Anticipating a large crowd, the interim government has announced that the elevated expressway of Dhaka, a major arterial road, will remain toll free during the daytime on Thursday (December 25). 

Party sources said the spurt in violence in Bangladesh over the past week did not affect Mr. Rahman’s plans to return home and that a large number of BNP supporters drawn from across the country are expected to greet him at the airport, where he is scheduled to arrive aboard a Biman Bangladesh aircraft around midday on Thursday (December 25). Mr. Rahman left Bangladesh during the interim rule of 2007-08, after he was imprisoned and later flown to the U.K. to seek medical treatment due to a deteriorating health condition. 

There were expectations of his return to Dhaka immediately after the fall of the Sheikh Hasina government on August 5, 2024. Yet, Mr. Rahman took around 15 months to return to Dhaka. The delay created a buzz among the observers of Bangladesh’s turbulent contemporary politics. However, ending speculations, he announced at an event in London on December 16 that he would return home on Christmas.

The BNP has furnished a house in the capital and purchased additional bulletproof vehicles for Mr. Rahman to campaign in the coming weeks. The security situation in Dhaka continued to remain serious with a bomb explosion killing at least one person in the capital’s Mogbazar area during the busy evening hours of Wednesday (December 24).

Mr. Rahman’s return is being described by the BNP as the biggest political event in its calendar, especially as Khaleda Zia has been absent from political rallies that have been managed by other senior leaders like Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, Amir Khasru Mahmud Choudhury, Salauddin Ahmed, Iqbal Hasan Mahmud Tuku and other members of the national standing committee of the party.

Mr. Rahman has not yet spoken to the press but has expressed his opinion about the current situation in Bangladesh on social media. In a post on ‘X’ on December 10, he presented BNP as a party that suffered human rights abuse under the Sheikh Hasina era but argued that the pain that BNP had endured did not lead to “bitterness”. He pitched for national unity and said, “What Bangladesh needs now is larger than politics. We envision a united country where human rights are guaranteed, where plurality of opinions is welcomed, where opposition is a healthy part of democracy rather than a threat, and where no one is erased for their beliefs.”

Mr. Rahman also grieved over the assassination of Sharif Osman Hadi, who was shot on December 12 and passed away in a Singapore hospital on December 18. BNP has adopted an inclusive approach to the violent incidents that have taken place in Bangladesh over the past two weeks. Soon after the death of Mr. Hadi and the subsequent destruction of prominent media offices and the lynching of a Hindu citizen in Mymensingh, the standing committee of the party met for an emergency meeting on December 19 and passed a resolution and “strongly condemned” all the violent activities, including the attack on iconic cultural institution Chhayanaut, by a mob.