Tarique Rahman To Return As Bangladesh Nationalist Party Pitches Him for PM

As Bangladesh gears up for elections in February next year, the focus is back on the possible return of Tarique Rahman, the Acting Chairperson of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, or the BNP.

BNP's acting chairman's advisor on foreign affairs, Humayun Kabir, has said if the BNP wins the election and forms the government, Tarique Rahman will become the prime minister, Bangladesh daily, Prothom Alo, reported.

Tarique Rahman is expected to return to Bangladesh sometime between November and December, ahead of the elections in February.

The BNP, his party, was the main opposition party during the Sheikh Hasina regime and boycotted the election in 2024 saying it was rigged in favour of Sheikh Hasina.

Tarique Rahman has been living abroad as under the Sheikh Hasina regime he was booked and convicted in cases and handed prison sentences. He was given life sentence in the August 21 grenade attack cases.

In December 2024, a High Court acquitted Tarique Rahman, Ex-minister Lutfozzaman Babar and all the others convicted in two cases related to August 21, 2004 grenade attack in which Sheikh Hasina, then opposition leader, narrowly escaped but 24 people were killed as several grenades were hurled when she was addressing a "rally against terrorism".

Tarique Rahman was sentenced to nine years in prison, and his wife Zubaida Rahman was handed a three-year jail sentence in a corruption case filed by the Anti-Corruption Commission in 2007. His return to Bangladesh became a possibility only after the Sheikh Hasina government was toppled. Both he and his wife were earlier designated as fugitives. The BNP had claimed that the cases against Rahman and other senior leaders of the BNP were a politically motivated conspiracy under the Sheikh Hasina regime to target senior BNP leaders.

Rahman is likely to be the BNP's Prime Ministerial candidate in the upcoming elections. His mother, former Prime Minister of Bangladesh, Begum Khaleda Zia is ailing, and Tarique Rahman is her political heir.

Tarique Rahman has been meeting important personalities and his recent meeting with the US Charge d'Affaires to Bangladesh Ambassador Tracey Ann Jacobson in London is seen as a significant one. While it has been described as a courtesy meeting, sources say Tarique Rahman's position on key Indo-Bangladesh issues were discussed.

In June this year, Tracy Ann Jacobson, had held a meeting with a BNP delegation, led by Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir.

Rahman also met Chief Adviser of the Interim Government of Bangladesh Muhammad Yunus during his visit to London in June this year.

In an address to his supporters in Bangladesh on August 5, Tarique Rahman said "In this long and difficult journey toward fulfilling that noble promise, both I and my party, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party-BNP, seek the continued support and solidarity of all those who believe in democracy, justice, and the future of a truly inclusive Bangladesh.'