Dhaka: Tarique Rahman will take oath as the new Prime Minister of Bangladesh on Tuesday after leading his party to a forceful victory in the crucial general elections.
Rahman’s Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) has bagged 209 out of 297 seats, while right-wing Jamaat-e-Islami secured 68 seats in the 13th Parliamentary elections. Deposed premier Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League was barred from contesting polls.
Breaking with a long-standing tradition, the swearing-in ceremony of the 60-year-old BNP chairman would be held at the South Plaza of the Parliament Complex instead of Bangabhaban.
President Mohammed Shahabuddin will administer the oath to the new cabinet members at the South Plaza of the Jatiya Sangsad on Tuesday afternoon, state-run BSS news agency reported on Monday.
“The Parliament Secretariat is set to hold the oath-taking ceremony of the new cabinet members at 4:00 pm tomorrow,” Secretary of the Jatiya Sangsad Secretariat Kaniz Maula said.
Earlier Tuesday, Chief Election Commissioner AMM Nasir Uddin would administer the oath to all newly elected members of the parliament.
All 297 newly elected lawmakers of the 13th Jatiya Sangsad (JS) will “first take oath as the members of parliament (MPs) and then as the members of the Constitutional Reform Council,” said a press release of JS Secretariat.
BNP has called a parliamentary party meeting at the Parliament Building at 11:30 am to elect the parliamentary party leader.
“As the leader of the majority party, our party chairman, Tarique Rahman, will be the Prime Minister,” said Salah Uddin Ahmed, a member of the standing committee of the BNP.
The Constitutional dictates - immediately after their swearing-in, the BNP MPs will elect their leader who will be invited by the President to form the government, a Bangabhaban presidential palace official said on Monday.
Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla will represent India at the swearing-in ceremony of Rahman. Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri and Secretary-General of Lok Sabha Utpal Kumar Singh are also likely to accompany Birla.
Rahman would become the prime minister for the first time.
He will replace the interim government chief Muhammad Yunus, under whose tenure Dhaka’s relations with New Delhi witnessed a significant downturn. Yunus took charge in August 2024 after the collapse of Hasina’s Awami League regime
following the massive anti-government protests.