BNP announces list of 237 ‘potential’ candidates for February election to Bangladesh National Assembly

By Our Correspondent

Agartala, November 4, 2025

The Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), likely successor to power in the troubletorn country, has stolen a march over rivals sans the banned Awami League in electoral preparedness by announcing a list of 237 candidates for the 300-member National Assembly (counterpart of Indian Lok Sabha). The much-awaited election to the National Assembly is tentatively scheduled to come off in the first part of February 2026 despite squeamishness over the issue on the part of the interim government headed by Md Yunus.

In an interactive session with the media held yesterday in the BNP headquarter at Gulshan area of Dhaka, the veteran BNP secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Alamgir released the list of 237 candidates leaving 63 slots open for parties including Jamat-e-Islami that may join the BNP in alliance. Mirza Fakhrul Alamgir who himself has been nominated for the Thakurgaon constituency said that former prime minister and BNP’s chairperson Begum Khaleda Zia will contest from three seats while her son and acting chairman of the party Tareq Rahaman, son of assassinated president and BNP founder Ziaur Rahaman, will also enter the fray from another constituency.

The BNP list also includes names of four candidates from the minority groups-two Hindu Bengalis and two tribals . Alamgir said that Gayeshwar Chandra Roy , member of BNP’s permanent committee, will contest from the Dhaka-3 constituency while the second Hindu candidate Nitai Roy Chowdhury, a senior leader and former minister of state, has been put up from Magura-2 constituency. There are two indigenous tribal candidates in the BNP list : Dipen Dewan from Rangamati district where he is the party’s convener and Saching Pru, convener of BNP’s Bandarban district committee in the Chittagong hill-tracts. Mirza Fakhrul said that the list is only of potential candidates and there may be omissions and inclusions in the coming days , depending on evolving situation and announced that the upcoming election will be his last as a candidate.

Meanwhile, the Islamist parties of Bangladesh are also trying to forge an alliance,keeping the Jamat—Islami out of it. The Jamaiat Ulema Bangladesh and the Islamic Aikya Jote have taken the lead in forming the alliance and are trying for alliance with larger political formations except the Jamat. Sources said that emergence of the Islamic alliance is likely to deepen the fissure within the fundamentalist vote of Bangladesh.

more news...