Signals emanating from Dhaka since the victory of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) in the February 12 elections have been positive, if measured.
Tarique Rahman, leader of the party, which won a two-thirds majority in the Jatiya Sangsad, has thanked Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the latter’s quick congratulations and said he looks forward to "constructive engagement" with India to strengthen bilateral ties. His advisers have called for a "complete reset" of bilateral ties. The Indian PM is among the leaders of 13 nations invited to attend Rahman's swearing-in ceremony on February 17.
Discerning the import of these signals, it is apparent that New Delhi is being offered a departure from the mutual suspicion and rancour that characterised ties under the interim advisory council led by Mohammed Yunus, but not quite a return to the warmth of the pre-revolution Sheikh Hasina regime. The BNP says the former framework is now "irrelevant" and the new relationship will have to recognise the current political reality in Bangladesh. Given this context, reactions from important sections in India, including the Union government, the Congress party and the Trinamool Congress, have been even-handed and well-calibrated.
From the first signals coming out of the BNP, it is evident that Sheikh Hasina’s stay in India will continue to be an issue, if only in optical rather than real terms. The former Prime Minister was sentenced last year, after a trial in absentia, to death for crimes against humanity. Yunus’s council played to the passions of the revolution in demanding her extradition from India. For public consumption, the incoming regime of Tarique Rahman is likely to keep up the posture but not press the point. Hasina would be a hot potato for the new regime should she indeed be extradited, considering that her Awami League party continues to have significant support in post-revolution Bangladesh even though it was kept out of the recent election. New Delhi would be doing a favour to the BNP regime if it keeps Hasina and keeps her quiet. So, it would be wise to persuade her to desist from making statements on developments across the border for the time being.
The imperative for New Delhi now is to let the BNP settle in government and deal with the revolutionary passions sweeping Bangladesh. Although not new to government, the BNP has a challenging task ahead. Although a two-thirds majority in the election would count as a landslide mandate, it would have to deal with the surge in support to the Jamaat-e-Islami, which won 67 seats in Parliament. This makes the Islamist party, once a BNP ally, a formidable adversary because of its alliance with student groups that led the July 2025 revolution.
A particular and significant concern for New Delhi is the fact that a majority of constituencies along the Indo-Bangladesh border voted for the Jamaat. These are constituencies where the Border Security Force’s stern handling of illegal immigrants, the Election Commission’s scrubbing of electoral rolls and the attacks on Muslims in Odisha and Bengal are likely to inflame anti-India passions. With elections coming up in West Bengal and Assam, it is therefore necessary for the BJP to desist from indulging in polarising rhetoric lest it make ties with Dhaka take a turn for the worse instead of returning to a working relationship that the new regime is promising.