Tarique vows return and forecasts BNP election sweep

Tarique Rahman, the exiled acting chairman of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), has announced his imminent return to Bangladesh to contest the country’s upcoming February elections, declaring his party poised to win a sweeping parliamentary majority. In his first in-person English-language interview, granted to the Financial Times, Tarique said the student-led revolution that ousted Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in 2024 would remain incomplete without a “free and credible” election, and insisted the BNP was ready to govern alone. “We are confident we will win,” Tarique said. “We strongly believe that we are in the position to form the government alone. I think the time is very close for my return to Bangladesh.” Tarique, 59, has lived in self-imposed exile in...