Gopalganj (Bangladesh): Their faces were lined and weather-beaten, their beards silver with age, but the audience in the hall was no less raucous than a band of youth. On the second floor of a multi-storey Muktijoddha (freedom fighters) complex in what has long been the stronghold of the Awami League, the audience erupted in constant back and forth as speakers from the stage berated Jamaat-e-Islami for attempting to obliterate the memory of the 1971 Liberation War.The gathering was a call to vote for Bangladesh Nationalist Party candidate K.M. Babar, contesting from one of three parliamentary seats in Gopalganj district in southern Bangladesh. Unthinkable, once – muktijoddhas backing the BNP in the Awami League’s iron cradle.The symbolism is stark. This is the birthplace of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, and of his daughter Sheikh Hasina, who represented Gopalganj-3 until her government’s dramatic collapse in August 2024. Here, the party once reigned unchallenged. Hasina had won 95.2% of the votes here in 2024, while her nephew Sheikh Selim swept Gopalganj-2 with 98%.But the February 12 election bears little resemblance to the past. For the first time since independence, the ballot in Mujib’s birthplace will not carry the boat symbol. The party that has long dominated politics in this district and played a founding role in the country’s independence has been banned. The student-led uprising of 2024, which forced Hasina to flee to India, ushered in an interim government led by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus, which outlawed Awami League activities last April.Now, the national contest pits Tarique Rahman’s BNP against Jamaat-e-Islami, running in alliance with the National Citizen Party, a youth-driven outfit born out of that same uprising. Opinion polls show the BNP in the lead, with Jamaat closing in fast.Gopalganj’s 1.295 million residents are 72% Muslim and 27% Hindu, as per the 2022 census. But in some upazilas, like Kotalipara, nearly half the population is Hindu. But whether these demographics will play a role in this election is secondary to the larger question haunting these polls – that of memory. Will Awami League loyalists will even show up to vote, and if they do, where will their votes fall?The past year has scarred this district. After Hasina’s downfall, her supporters staged a violent blockade in August 2024, torching an army vehicle in a bid to force her return. A year later, on the anniversary of her ouster, Gopalganj descended once more into bloodshed when banned Awami League followers clashed with security forces at an NCP rally. Five people died. The government imposed a curfew, soldiers patrolled the streets, and rights groups later demanded an independent probe into alleged extrajudicial killings.Local journalists had been picked out as targets of the anti-NCP mob, with many of them injured during the violence. But no one is ready to come on record to talk about what happened that day in July 2025. “Even if the BNP comes to power nationally, the system remains with Awami League here,” said a local journalist who requested anonymity.The main road, which had turned into a battleground during the July 2025 clashes, is now chockablock with vehicles and people. The only physical trace of the violence appears to have been left in the three broken windows of a hotel.The Gopalganj district Muktijoddha complex. Photo: Faisal Titumir.Inside the Muktijoddha complex, the echoes of that trauma mixed with nostalgia and defiance. “We are Sheikh Mujib’s soldiers,” declared one speaker. “They are trying to destroy ’71. If you want your legacy to remain, for ’71 to matter, for the constitution to remain, then vote for BNP and say no in the referendum.”Muktijoddhas or freedom fighters in a meeting to back the local BNP candidate in Gopalganj, Bangladesh. Photo: Devirupa Mitra.The February 12 elections will also include a gono-vote or referendum which, if passed, will set the stage for government reforms as envisaged by a committee formed by the caretaker government. Sections of the BNP dissent on many points of the reforms which the referendum seeks to implement.Another thundered that Ziaur Rahman, BNP’s founder, had himself been a war hero. “Those who opposed Bangladesh will be defeated on February 12,” he said, urging the crowd to back BNP candidate Babar as the true inheritor of the spirit of liberation.Babar, when he rose to speak, struck an emotional chord. “Freedom fighters are the finest sons of this soil,” he said. “If we return to power, honouring their dignity will be our first duty.” He even suggested that if the Jamaat alliance won, it would mean a turn towards “Afghanistan”. Jamaat-e-Islami, which was banned under Hasina and whose role in collaborating with Pakistan during the 1971 war still sparks polarised reactions, has nominated candidates for two Gopalganj seats and left the third to its partner, Bangladesh Khelafat Majlis.Later, in conversation with The Wire, Babar expectedly expressed confidence. “Those who fought for ’71 will not vote for Jamaat’s alliance,” he said. “The BNP is for the war. Our leader was a sector commander.” The candidate stressed on his own “clean image” and his appeal to young and educated voters who “know their history and feel it in their hearts.”BNP’s Gopalganj-2 candidate K.M. Babar (centre). Photo: Devirupa Mitra/The Wire.Yet in private, local analysts claimed that the BNP candidate faced unexpected headwinds. Independents, some former BNP men themselves, might splinter the vote.Ahead of February 12, Gopalganj’s volatility is official. The district election office flagged 97% of polling centres as “at risk,” per joint assessments by police Special Branch and intelligence.The voter turnout, as per the local media persons, could be as low as 30-35%. In the controversial 2024 parliamentary elections, Gopalganj-2 had seen the highest turnout at 87%. Walk through the streets and Gopalganj still feels suspended between eras. Mujib lingers everywhere – in murals, in the courtyards, on the walls of local government offices, and in the chipped slogans painted in red saying, ‘Joy Bangla (victory to Bangla)’. Some have been scratched out, yet none erased fully. Even as the college once named after the ‘Bangabandhu’ now bears a neutral title, Gopalganj Government College, after the fall of Hasina government, Mujib’s likeness, in the form of a wall mosaic and an unharmed statue, still watches over its gates.The Gopalganj Government College, previously the Gopalganj Government Bangabandhu College, at Gopalganj in Bangladesh. Photo: Faisal Titumir.But voices across the district were guarded. At the main gate, 23-year-old Semanto Ghosh, a political science student, adjusts his bag and says carefully, “I will vote. That is our right as citizens,” he told The Wire. Like many here, he stops short of saying more. In Gopalganj, silence has become the new political language.A teacher, who didn’t want to be named, also preferred to remain equally cryptic. “I will vote, and I will make my choice in the referendum. That’s all I know,” he said, emphatically.Asked whether the Awami League was still as strong as it used to be locally , he explained in a roundabout way. “I understand that the ex-prime minister’s people – who were created by her – they are opposing her. But those who are ordinary, those who worry about their livelihood, about their children getting a good education, the marginal workers, they have not forgotten her.”In another indirect answer, he brought up one of his distant relatives “who everyone thinks is a bit eccentric.” The man had come to him while he was washing a lungi near a field and announced that he had not voted for Sheikh Hasina but would keep on supporting her. “He told me, ‘I heard that there will be a university in Gopalganj. My son will then be able to work two days on the land and learn for five days in the university’.”He added that the son, who would get educated and join government service, “may forget, but the father won’t”.The younger generation, he said, may not have imbibed the lessons of the liberation war. “This Gen-Z is not clear. In my three decades of teaching, I will say that the only people who talk about the liberation war among the students are those of the Chatro Union [a leftwing students’ organisation] and Shibir [Bangladesh Islami Chhatrashibir, another student outfit].”In quite the contrast to this teacher, Babar, on the other hand, had faith in the youth, who he asserted had learnt about the history of Bangladesh in their schools. “They heard about Vijoy Dibosh directly from those who fought and I believe they have embraced it with their heart.”A senior office bearer of the freedom fighter group, sitting next to Babar, also intervened to say that youth value the fight for freedom. “They listen to us very sincerely.”At Gopalganj-2’s Tungipara, lawyer Habibur Rahman Habib has been canvassing village after village as an independent candidate.A former BNP youth leader, he was expelled after he submitted his nomination. His pitch for voters is obvious as he began his election campaign in Gopalganj by attempting to pray at the grave of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. Unable to enter the mausoleum due to lack of permission, he offered prayers outside.The mausoleum of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in Gopalganj, now closed. Photo: Devirupa Mitra.The mausoleum has been closed to all visitors since August 2024. Outside one of the side gates, there is still a long billboard which has sketches of his family members who were slain at the 32, Dhanmondi address in Dhaka, as well his surviving children, Sheikh Hasina and Sheikh Rehana.“This is the place where Sheikh Mujib was born. This is known as the fortress of Awami League….When the Awami League was ousted and the former prime minister left the country, the people here were a target for a lot of disinformation and political vendetta, Habib said. “I left BNP as I couldn’t do it. I resigned. When I submitted and got my symbol, BNP expelled me.”Independent candidate Habibur Rahman Habib canvassing in a village in Tungipara. Photo: Devirupa Mitra/The Wire.When asked about how the Hindu vote would go, he spoke about his local antecedents. “I have been born here and live here,” he said. The sole Hindu candidate, he pointed out, was from another district.As usual, talk about the voting turnout is followed by expressions of concern. “Getting voters to turn up is always a challenge. There is a bit of uncertainty, but I am urging everyone that there is a transition afoot. I am telling them that they need an elected representative for themselves, especially now,” he said.As Habib’s entourage left, 42-year-old farmer Ajit Mondal explained a dilemma while laughing nervously. “Earlier, we were all nouko log – boat people,” he said, in an allusion to Awami League’s election symbol. “If there was even a leaf that stood for Awami League, we would have voted for the leaf.” Now, he shrugged, “We will vote, because not voting may create problems for us.” When asked to explain what he meant, he said that most of the candidates are from nearby villages, so they know each other – something which might expose those who do not vote to questions.When a fellow villager mentions that Sheikh Hasina should not have left for India but rather come to Gopalganj, Mondal nodded. “There is no power that could have harmed her if she came here. People would have laid down their lives for her,” he said.