Bangladesh is heading into its first election after a student-led uprising forced former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to resign and flee the country a year-and-a-half ago. From those crowded streets and bloodied campuses emerged a new political force, now facing its first real test at the ballot box.
The Jatiya Nagarik Party (JNP), also known as the National Citizen Party (NCP), is a political outfit formed by student leaders who helped topple Hasina's 16-year rule.
How Students Ousted A Prime Minister
The movement began in July 2024 as protests against discriminatory public-sector job quotas, a long-standing grievance among students and young graduates. The anger soon grew into a revolt against corruption, repression, and the lack of fair elections under Hasina's Awami League.
The government responded with brutal force. Police, paramilitary units, and ruling-party student activists cracked down on demonstrators. Curfews were imposed, and the military was deployed. According to United Nations estimates, up to 1,400 people, many of them students and teenagers, were killed.
Videos of police shootings and battered protesters went viral. Within weeks, protests turned into a nationwide rebellion. On 5 August 2024, Hasina resigned and fled to India. In November 2025, she was sentenced to death by a Bangladesh court for crimes against humanity.
Interim Government
After Hasina's exit, an interim government led by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus took charge. Student leaders from the protests joined in advisory roles.
The Yunus administration promised wide-ranging reforms, including overhauls of the election commission, judiciary, police, bureaucracy, and anti-corruption bodies, backed by multiple reform commissions.
Under Hasina, the Awami League built a vast patronage network across government, police, courts, universities, business groups, media, and civil society. A major enforcer was the Bangladesh Chhatra League (BCL), the party's student wing, notorious for suppressing dissent.
During the quota protests, BCL activists, often supported by police, attacked demonstrators to enforce the message that the system was rigged.
Public frustration had been building for years. Many young Bangladeshis, aged 18 to 28, had never voted in national elections, as the last three general elections were widely seen as non-competitive.
Birth Of The National Citizens' Party
Out of the uprising came the Jatiya Nagarik Party (NCP), formed by leaders of the protest movement, many linked to the group Students Against Discrimination (SAD). The party is led by Nahid Islam, a prominent face of the protests.
The NCP called itself an anti-corruption, anti-authoritarian alternative to Bangladesh's traditional parties. Its manifesto focuses on justice for victims of the crackdown, institutional reform, youth employment, and even lowering the voting age to 16.
As elections neared, the NCP struggled with organisation, experience, and funding. It made a controversial decision to form a pre-poll alliance with Jamaat-e-Islami, Bangladesh's largest Islamist party.
Jamaat, long marginalised and once banned, has gained momentum by framing itself as another victim of Hasina's repression. Its student wing recently won major university elections, including at Dhaka University.
The alliance has deeply divided the student movement. The fallout has been sharpest among women leaders, several of whom resigned, accusing the party of sidelining them. Of the NCP candidates allowed under the alliance, only two are women.
Some former student leaders are now turning to the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), seeing it as a lesser evil despite its dynastic roots.
With the Awami League banned from contesting, the biggest beneficiary of the political reset may be the BNP. Led by Tarique Rahman, son of former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, the BNP is once again a serious contender.
