Who is Tarique Rahman, Bangladesh’s next Prime Minister? Does BNP victory signal a reset in ties with India?

Bangladesh Election Results: Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) leader Tarique Rahman is all set to be sworn in as the nation's next Prime Minister following a landslide registered by his party in the 12 February general elections.

The general elections were the first held after a student-led uprising in 2024, which ousted longtime prime minister Sheikh Hasina and ended her party, the Awami League's, 15-year rule.

The 60-year-old BNP chairman is set to inherit a country grappling with high inflation, a weakening currency and youth unemployment running at a staggering 14 per cent, news agencies reported from the ground in Dhaka.

Tarique is the scion of one of Bangladesh’s most prominent political families. His mother, Khaleda Zia, was a two-time prime minister who died last year. His father, Ziaur Rahman, was a military officer who served as president of Bangladesh.

Tarique returned to Bangladesh to fight the elections in December 2025, after more than 17 years of self-imposed exile in London. He took over leadership of the BNP from his mother, Khaleda Zia, a giant of Bangladeshi politics and longtime political nemesis of Hasina. Zia died just five days after Rahman’s return home in December.

In speeches, he has pledged to dismantle “the very monarchical” executive power on which his family once thrived, only for Hasina of the Awami League — herself a scion of another political dynasty — to entrench her rule after her 2008 election victory.

He left a note at the airport that read: " I, Tarique Rahman, do hereby declare that as of today, 11 September 2008 I resign the post of senior joint secretary general of the BNP and thereby, retire from active politics."

Tarique was jailed in 2007 as part of an anti-corruption drive by a military-backed caretaker government on charges he denies. In 2008, he was released to seek medical treatment in London, after being so badly tortured in jail that he was taken to the plane in a wheelchair.

In 2024, after Hasina’s fall, the courts overturned his convictions, finally freeing him to return home.

Tarique's daughter, Zaima, a 30-year-old UK-educated barrister, energised her father’s campaign, visiting the chaotic lanes of Dhaka-17 in a rickshaw and handing out pamphlets. Her political debut was intended to project a modern image of a party long accused of presiding over a politically violent dynasty.

Tarique has made several populist pledges on social welfare – including a promise to introduce a “family card” providing monthly cash handouts to five million low-income households and to expand agricultural subsidies. Yet the fiscal space to deliver on those commitments is limited, given the country’s tax-to-GDP ratio of less than 7%, one of the lowest in Asia, Bloomberg reported.

Tarique's high-octane campaign in the run-up to the 12 February polls focused mostly on domestic issues, reassuring the party’s traditional rural voter base and cultivating support among educated urban youth, who have largely opposed BNP over its past violence.

He has signalled a break with Jamaat-e-Islami, Bangladesh’s largest Islamist party, which for years provided the BNP with street muscle as an ally. Just days before the election, Tarique rejected Jamaat’s proposal to form a unity government – a move that party insiders see as evidence of his effort to court Western powers and reassure a wary India of his secular image.

Throughout the fifteen years of Sheikh Hasina's Awami League government in Bangladesh, New Delhi enjoyed friendly ties with Dhaka.

However, the New Delhi-Dhaka ties started deteriorating soon after the ouster of the Hasina-led Awami League regime on 5 August 2024 and the subsequent violence against minorities, particularly the Hindu community.

As violence ensued across Bangladesh, Hasina fled to India.

Following the August 2024 upheaval, violent incidents targeting the Hindu community in Bangladesh were reported, resulting in multiple deaths and attacks on homes and businesses.

In recent weeks, India has restricted tourist visas for Bangladeshis and also withdrew families of Indian diplomats from Bangladesh, citing security concerns ahead of the national elections.

The diplomatic tension has affected sports ties too. Last month, Bangladesh withdrew from the men’s T20 World Cup after the International Cricket Council declined a request to move their group matches from India to the co-hosts Sri Lanka.

In January, however, Foreign Minister S Jaishankar met Rahman in Dhaka and carried a message from Modi seeking a “new beginning” in ties.

Tarique has said, in his campaign speeches and interviews, that he will prioritise Bangladesh in its foreign relations. “Bangladesh comes first,” he told the BBC in an interview last year. “I will prioritise the interests of my country’s people and my nation’s interests first.”

As the prospective leader of South Asia’s second-largest economy – one that conducts military exercises with the US and is a major contributor to United Nations peacekeeping forces – Rahman would face a delicate balancing act between India, the US and China. The latter has significantly stepped up its investment in Bangladesh in recent years as it expands its footprint along the Bay of Bengal.

“India desisted from engaging with the Yunus government beyond what is absolutely necessary. A definite vote and a victory for BNP clearly means that Delhi and Dhaka come to a negotiating table. We will have to wait to watch to know if there will be reset in India-Bangladesh ties,” senior journalist and author Deep Halder told LiveMint on Friday.

(With inputs from Bloomberg)