BNP's Khaleda Zia to attend first state event since imprisonment in 2018

Bangladesh’s former prime minister and BNP chairperson Khaleda Zia will make her first public appearance and maiden participation in a state event in six years today as she will be attending the Armed Forces Day reception in Dhaka Cantonment.

Also, this will be the first in nearly 11 years, she will be present at the reception which she last attended in 2012.

The invitation for the Armed Forces Day reception was sent to Khaleda on Tuesday. Chief Adviser of Bangladesh’s interim government Muhammad Yunus will be the chief guest of the ceremony.

“The BNP chairperson will go to Senakunja on Thursday (November 21) to participate in a function on the occasion of Armed Forces Day,” Khaleda Zia’s personal secretary ABM Abdus Sattar said.

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Sattar further informed that Khaleda Zia is scheduled to leave for Senakunja around 3 pm on Thursday from her Gulshan residence.

On February 8, 2018, Khaleda Zia, the first woman prime minister of Bangladesh, was sentenced to jail for 17 years by a special court which convicted her in corruption charges, making her ineligible to contests elections later that year.

The 79-year-old former Bangladesh PM has been suffering for years from various health ailments, including liver cirrhosis, heart, lung, kidney and eye diseases. Even while serving her jail term, she had been largely confined to hospital.

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During the Covid-19 pandemic, the previous Awami League government on March 25, 2020, temporarily freed Khaleda through an executive order. Her sentence was suspended on the conditions that she would stay in her Gulshan home and not flee from the country.

Zia was freed on August 6 this year, day after former Bangladesh PM Sheik Hasina resigned and fled from the country after the student protests intensified.

The BNP chairperson was freed after Bangladesh President Mohammed Shahabuddin exempted her from her punishment under the presidential power stated in Article 49 of the constitution.

Khaleda Zia’s political journey

Khaleda Zia’s first term was in 1991 when she became Bangladesh’s PM. She took the charge to led the country which was undergoing serious civil unrest. She formed the government with the help of the Jamaa-e-Islami as her party was falling short of a majority.

In 1996, she won for the second consecutive time, but the elections were boycotted and denounced as unfair by the major opposition parties, including Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League.

The Khaleda Zia-led government, which was voted to power in 1996, lasted just for 12 days, following which a caretaker government was installed and fresh elections were conducted in which Awami League won and Hasina became the prime minister for the first time.

Khaleda Zia did not stop there, she returned to power five years later in 2001 as an alliance of four parties led by her won the elections. However, she stepped down in 2006.

Bangladesh Armed Forces Day

Armed Forces Day is celebrated to mark the establishment of the forces during the Liberation War in 1971.

According to a release by Inter Services Public Relations Director, the Armed Forces Day programmes begin with offering special prayers after Fazr prayers at all mosques in all cantonments and naval as well as air force bases, seeking divine blessings for the wellbeing and prosperity of the nation and progress of the armed forces.

With inputs from agencies.