Dhaka: Tarique Rahman was elected leader of the parliamentary party of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) on Tuesday, party officials said.
The decision, a formality, was taken at a meeting of newly elected BNP lawmakers held at the parliamentary party room after 11:30 am, shortly after they were sworn in as members of parliament. His oath-taking as Prime Minister and that of 23 MPs and two technocrats who will serve in his cabinet are slated for later this evening.
Their oath was administered earlier in the morning at the South Plaza of the Bangladesh National Parliament by Chief Election Commissioner AMM Nasir Uddin, in line with constitutional provisions that assign the responsibility to the election chief in the absence of the speaker or deputy speaker.
Tarique Rahman, 60, is the eldest son of former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, who passed away shortly after his return to Bangladesh in December 2025, and of former President Ziaur Rahman, the founder of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP).
Ziaur Rahman was assassinated during a military coup in 1981, after which Khaleda Zia entered politics and first assumed office as Prime Minister in 1991. Rahman has served as the party’s acting chairman since his mother’s imprisonment in 2018.
More than a thousand local and foreign guests attended the ceremony, which was held under a four-tier security arrangement around the parliament complex.
Following the swearing-in of lawmakers, the chief election commissioner also administered the oath to members of the Constitution Reform Commission.
BNP lawmakers decided at their parliamentary party meeting that they would not accept duty-free vehicles or government residential plots, according to party sources.
Lawmakers elected from the Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami-led 11-party alliance, along with independent members, were also sworn in on Tuesday. They too took an oath as members of the Constitution Reform Commission.
Earlier, Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami Nayeb-e-Ameer Abdullah Muhammad Taher had said his party would refrain from taking the oath as commission members if BNP lawmakers declined to do so.
Taher said the party viewed a parliament without constitutional reform as “meaningless.”
The ceremony marks the end of the interim government led by Chief Adviser Mohammed Yunus, which took charge after the fall of Sheikh Hasina’s government.
In his farewell address, Yunus highlighted the government’s focus on institutional reforms and the drafting of the July Charter, which was adopted by a broad spectrum of political parties and endorsed in the recent referendum. The Charter aims to prevent the resurgence of authoritarianism and ensure stability in Bangladesh’s democratic institutions.
