BNP Chairman Tarique Rahman has said his party was confident to win the election to form the next government, rejecting a proposal to form a coalition or unity government with Jamaat-e-Islami.
 
 "How can I form a government with my political opponents, and then who would be in the opposition?” Rahman said in an interview with Reuters in an apparent reference to Jamaat-e-Islami, which earlier floated the idea of forming an alliance government.
 
He added: “I don't know what will be their seat number, but if they are in the opposition, I hope to have them as a good opposition.”
 
The UK-based global news agency, however, recalled that the two parties governed Bangladesh together between 2001 and 2006.
 
It rote Jamaat recently said it was open to renewing the partnership for a unity government to help stabilise the country, whose giant garments industry was badly disrupted by months of turmoil in 2024.
 
Describing the scenario Reuters said 60-year-old Tarique returned home in December after nearly two decades in exile in London following a youth-led uprising that toppled long-time leader Sheikh Hasina since when Bangladesh is being run by an interim government.
 
The wire service said Tarique’s aides said BNP was confident of winning more than two thirds of the 300 parliamentary seats up for grabs while the party was contesting 292 of them, with allies vying for the rest.
 
They said Tarique, however, declined to give a number but said "we are confident that we'll have enough to form a government”.
 
All opinion polls have forecast a BNP victory but also a stiff challenge from the Jamaat alliance, which includes a Gen Z party that emerged from the youth-led anti-Hasina protests.
 
GOOD RELATIONS GLOBALLY
 
The Reuters commented New Delhi's decision to shelter Hasina, whom a Dhaka court last year sentenced to death for her role in the crackdown, has badly strained Bangladesh-India relations while giving China an opening to expand its investments and political outreach. 
 
Asked whether he would pivot away from India toward China should he win, Tarique said Bangladesh needed partners capable of boosting economic growth for its nearly 175 million people.
 
   He said if BNP formed the government, it would need to create employment opportunity for young people and bring businesses Bangladesh for job creation and offer people a better life.
 
“So whoever, while protecting the interests and sovereignty of Bangladesh, offers what is suitable for my people and my country, we will have friendship with them, not with any particular country,” the new BNP chairman said.
 
ROHINGYA WELCOME TO STAY UNTIL SAFE TO RETURN
 
Bangladesh, one of the world’s most densely populated countries with high rates of extreme poverty, hosts nearly 1.2 million Rohingya Muslim refugees, many of whom fled multiple crackdowns in neighbouring Buddhist-majority Myanmar, where they are treated as outsiders.
 
The Bangladesh interim government said last year it had no capacity to allocate additional resources for the refugees “given our numerous challenges” and called on the international community to help repatriate them.
 
The BNP chairman said he too wanted them to return home but only when conditions were safe saying “we will try to work on the issue so that these people can go back to their own land”.
 
“(But) the situation has to be safe for them to go back there. As long as it is not safe, they are very welcome to stay here,” he said.