London: Tarique Rahman, the 60-year-old leader of Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), returned to Dhaka on Thursday to a hero’s welcome after spending 17 years in exile in the United Kingdom. The eldest son of former president General Ziaur Rahman and three-time prime minister Khaleda Zia, Rahman is now poised to follow in his parents’ footsteps and lead his party to victory in next February’s elections.Recent opinion surveys show the BNP leading by a significant margin, especially as its bitter rival the Awami League has been banned from participating in the polls. A survey by the Prothom Alo newspaper also shows the vast majority of people expect the BNP to win.Although nothing can be taken for granted in the present volatile politics of the country, this represents an opportunity for Rahman to cement his place in history.“Tarique Rahman was handpicked by his mother to lead the party. He did not have an opportunity to lead any movement but a different opportunity has now presented itself,” said writer and political analyst Mohiuddin Ahmed, in a conversation with Dhaka’s the Business Standard.“He has a big party with him, and if he can keep a cool head and lead the party to victory, then his leadership will be established beyond doubt.”Rahman’s leadership of the BNP is already well-established, and he enjoys almost rockstar-level adulation among the party rank and file. In the dynastic culture of the party founded by General Zia in 1978, the idea of a leader from outside the founder’s family has never been seriously entertained.Rahman travelled to Dhaka with wife Zubaida and daughter Zaima, both of whom are also seen as likely future leaders.But while the welcome party put on by the BNP sought to elevate him to the status of a national leader and prime minister-in-waiting, the reality is likely to be somewhat different.“Such receptions can have an impact on elections. This means staging a show of popular strength which in our politics plays an important role to create a political cult,” Zobaida Nasreen, a political analyst and professor of anthropology at Dhaka University told me in an interview.“Through such heroic receptions, their past history of corruption, abuse of power and all other unacceptable behaviour can be removed from the public mind,” Dr Nasreen said.Also read: Bangladesh’s Dangerous Drift: From Revolution to Renewed InstabilityBy “past history of corruption” she was referring to Rahman’s record during the BNP’s last stint in power between 2001 and 2006, which was fraught with allegations of corruption and complicity in terror-linked violence. Although he was not a minister, Rahman was heir-apparent to party leader and prime minister Khaleda Zia and wielded enormous power from the party office called Hawa Bhavan, which became synonymous with corruption.Later in 2018, Rahman was convicted and given a life sentence for complicity in a failed attempt to assassinate Sheikh Hasina on August 21, 2004, when a dozen grenades were thrown at an Awami League rally in Dhaka, killing 24 people.Since the fall of the Awami League government on August 5 last year, the courts have dropped all charges against Rahman and quashed the convictions including the attempted assassination case. But despite such exoneration, his toxic legacy is likely to weigh heavy in the months ahead.“At present, BNP’s previous periods of rule are being kept out of public discourse, but the election period will be different,” Dr Nasreen said. “During the campaign, all those issues, especially the terrible picture of Hawa Bhavan corruption during 2001-06 will definitely have an impact. But it may have less relevance for first-time voters.”Leaders of the BNP, mindful of the need to reinvent Tarique Rahman’s image as the “future of Bangladesh,” are projecting his return as the ushering of a new era.In order to cement the “heroic return” narrative, they held numerous programmes to whip up public enthusiasm. A senior BNP leader compared Rahman’s return to a light in the dark.“Just as the glow from fireflies in the dead of night fills people with peaceful emotions, the return of Tarique Rahman has brought a crystal clear message of democratic renewal among the people of the country,” Moazzem Hossain Alal, an adviser to the party’s chairperson Khaleda Zia, said.However, the glow may not all go Rahman’s way, as the light may even shine on his past, especially related to his departure from the country nearly two decades ago.The Daily Star name board, fallen amid the rubble after its office was vandalised by protesters in Dhakha on December 19, 2025. Photo: PTITarique Rahman left the country on September 11, 2008 after being released from prison and allowed to travel to the UK to receive treatment. He had spent the previous 18 months in jail, facing 13 corruption charges filed by the military-backed caretaker regime which came to power on January 11, 2007.His release was negotiated with the Army by his mother, in return for BNP agreeing to participate in the 2008 elections.At the time, Khaleda Zia told reporters that Tarique would stay away from politics for two or three years, while he recovered from the severe beatings and torture meted out to him in custody. The BNP had never confirmed nor been able to quash rumours about Rahman signing an “undertaking” to the military, to stay away from politics.Rahman remained in the United Kingdom during the 15 years of Sheikh Hasina’s rule. According to party officials, he applied for political asylum in 2012, which was granted a year later. They deny that Rahman ever took up British nationality.What remains undeniable is that, although BNP largely retained its organisational strength and structure despite severe government repression, Rahman’s remote-controlled leadership from London failed to dislodge Hasina from power. When students led an uprising in July last year, the BNP leadership seemed to be caught off-guard.The leadership vacuum allowed the military to seize the initiative, arrange safe passage for Hasina and organise an interim government, which ignored BNP’s pleadings for elections within six months.Rahman, however, regained the initiative earlier on June 13 this year, when interim regime chief Muhammad Yunus felt compelled to meet the BNP leader in London. Although BNP wanted polls no later than December, Yunus persuaded him to agree to a February, 2026 date.Also read: My Brief Brush With Osman HadiThe meeting with Yunus was clearly the high point in Tarique Rahman’s career as party leader. He had utilised the previous 17 years in the UK, especially the year and half since Hasina’s fall, to craft a message that sought to promise tolerance and moderation. He promised to make a clean break from Hasina’s authoritarian ways, while choosing not to admit to any guilt nor offer any apology for any transgressions on his part.But the Bangladesh Rahman would find in 2025 would be very different from the one he left behind in 2008. New forces – young, radical and impatient – have emerged from the shadows, raising Islamist slogans and challenging the narrative about the country’s liberation from Pakistan. The country’s close relationship with India became one of the first casualties of what is known as the July Revolution. One of the leaders of these new forces was Osman Hadi, the virulently anti-India campaigner whose murder earlier in December triggered attacks on symbols of liberal and secular thought.For most of the country’s history, these hardcore Islamist groups had been kept in the fringes, while the centre-right BNP and centre-left Awami League dominated politics.The upheaval of 2024 brought groups such as the Jamaat-e-Islami, Khelafat Majlish, Islami Andolan etc into the mainstream, enjoying a share of power. These Islamist forces were BNP’s allies in the past, both at elections and in the street. Without the Awami League in the picture, they are now competing for power and alliances are shifting rapidly.The recent attacks on the Daily Star and Prothom Alo, two newspapers with liberal and secular values, as well as against music centres promoting Bengali culture, have alarmed people about the direction in which the country is heading. As a result, the BNP is being seen as indispensable, even by people who once regarded the party as a political enemy.People gather for the funeral of youth leader Sharif Osman Hadi near the National Parliament Building, in Dhaka, December 20, 2025. Photo: PTI“In the absence of Awami League, liberal and moderate people are looking to the BNP to save the country. People of this country are religious but they don’t believe in extremism,” wrote Ashraful Alam Khokon, a former member of Sheikh Hasina’s press team in his Facebook page.Observers such as Zobaida Nasreen agree that, in the context of current realities, people with secular and liberal values do see Tarique Rahman as the “lesser of two evils.” But Dr Nasreen feels it is too early to predict Rahman’s priorities in the months ahead.“People desire security, secularism, an inclusive Bangladesh. These values were lacking in BNP’s politics in the past too. But now, even though these values are featuring in Rahman’s speeches, it will depend on how he achieves power and which allies he will prioritise in order to remain in power,” she said.Rahman plans to pray at the grave of Osman Hadi on Friday, on the same day as he prays at his father’s grave. This indicates he intends to keep the radical youth who drove Hasina from power on his side, just as Muhammad Yunus has been doing.While Rahman in his almost daily sermons via video links has been talking of policies and reforms, the key battle in Bangladesh is about identity and history – a secular future or an Islamic one? Was 1971 the year of liberation, or merely replacement of Pakistani rule with Indian hegemony? How to view Sheikh Mujib’s place in history? This is the critical choice Tarique Rahman has to make.While he has come across as a moderate in the past year or so, observers feel his position on those emotional, identity issues may be dictated by political expediency, rather than conviction.Also read: Bangladesh Turmoil: Indian Students Recall Harrowing Experience, Return Home“It is difficult to say whether he will maintain this moderate course. He is adopting a particular strategy for the elections, but we will know his and his party’s true position once they are in power,” Dr Nasreen said.The task is made more difficult by the fact that the BNP has always been a “broad church” type of party, where people with far-left and far-right views co-exist. But Tarique Rahman may use this to his advantage, by claiming to be both protector of Bangladesh’s Muslim identity, while at the same time promote the secular Bengali spirit of the 1971 liberation war.The writer is former head of BBC Bangla and former managing editor, VOA Bangla.