Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) supremo Tarique Rahman has emerged as a front-runner for the upcoming elections in the country, its first since the ouster of former prime minister Sheikh Hasina.
As Rahman is campaigning across the country for February 12 polls, his daughter Zaima is rallying support in the capital Dhaka. In a video, Rahman’s daughter was seen handing out pamphlets in his support to people while sitting in a rickshaw.
Rahman, 60, on Friday rejected a proposal from his primary rival for a unity government, while expressing confidence of a win in the elections scheduled next week, Reuters reported.
The BNP chairperson, who was in exile for the last nearly two decades, returned to Bangladesh in December last year following the deteriorating health of his mother Khaleda Zia. Zia, who passed away on December 30, 2025, was Bangladesh’s first woman prime minister.
The country has been run by an interim government after Hasina’s ouster following the youth-led uprising in July, 2024.
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‘Confident we will have enough to form government’: Tarique Rahman
Rahman, in an interview at his party office, said he was confident that the BNP would “have enough to form a government.” This comes even as opinion polls have predicted a BNP victory, with a stiff challenge expected from main rival Jamaat-e-Islami, Reuters reported. The group had earlier been banned but has now seen a rise in public space.
The BNP and Jamaat-e-Islami had formed government together between 2001 and 2006, with the latter recently saying it is open to renewing the partnership for a unity government, Reuters reported. However, Rahman has rejected joining hands with the party.
“How can I form a government with my political opponents, and then who would be in the opposition?” the BNP chairperson questioned. “I don’t know what will be their seat number, but if they are in the opposition, I hope to have them as a good opposition,” Reuters cited him as saying.
