Dhaka, Feb 17 (.) Tarique Rahman was elected leader of the parliamentary party of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) on Tuesday, and is likely to head a jumbo cabinet with 49 members in all, party officials said.
The decision to elect Rahman, a formality, was taken at a meeting of newly elected BNP lawmakers held at the parliamentary party room after 11:30 am, shortly after they were sworn in as members of parliament. Rahman’s oath-taking as Prime Minister and that of MPs and technocrats who will serve in his cabinet are slated for later this evening.
Sources said the cabinet will be a huge one with 25 full cabinet ministers and 24 ministers of state. Among those who will have full cabinet rank will be – Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, Amir Khoshru Mahmud Chowdhury, Salahuddin Ahmed, Iqbal Hasan Mahmud, Maj (retd) Hafiz Uddin Ahmed Bir Bikram, Abu Jafar Md Zahid Hossain, Dr Khalilur Rahman (Technocrat), Nitai Roy Chowdhury and Afroza Khanam Rita.
Among those slated to be state ministers are M Rashiduzzaman Millat, Anindya Islam Amit, Md Shariful Alam, Shama Obaed Islam, Sultan Salahuddin Tuku, Barrister Kaiser Kamal, and Farzana Sharmin.
The oath for BNP MPs was administered earlier in the morning at the South Plaza of the Bangladesh National Parliament by Chief Election Commissioner AMM Nasir Uddin, in line with constitutional provisions that assign the responsibility to the election chief in the absence of the speaker or deputy speaker.
Tarique Rahman, 60, is the eldest son of former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, who passed away shortly after his return to Bangladesh in December 2025, and of former President Ziaur Rahman, the founder of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP).
Ziaur Rahman was assassinated during a military coup in 1981, after which Khaleda Zia entered politics and first assumed office as Prime Minister in 1991. Rahman has served as the party’s acting chairman since his mother’s imprisonment in 2018.
More than a thousand local and foreign guests attended the ceremony, which was held under a four-tier security arrangement around the parliament complex.
Following the swearing-in of lawmakers, the chief election commissioner also administered the oath to members of the Constitution Reform Commission.
BNP lawmakers decided at their parliamentary party meeting that they would not accept duty-free vehicles or government residential plots, according to party sources.
Lawmakers elected from the Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami-led 11-party alliance, along with independent members, were also sworn in on Tuesday. They too took an oath as members of the Constitution Reform Commission.
Earlier, Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami Nayeb-e-Ameer Abdullah Muhammad Taher had said his party would refrain from taking the oath as commission members if BNP lawmakers declined to do so.
Taher said the party viewed a parliament without constitutional reform as “meaningless.”
The ceremony marks the end of the interim government led by Chief Adviser Mohammed Yunus, which took charge after the fall of Sheikh Hasina’s government.
In his farewell address, Yunus highlighted the government’s focus on institutional reforms and the drafting of the July Charter, which was adopted by a broad spectrum of political parties and endorsed in the recent referendum. The Charter aims to prevent the resurgence of authoritarianism and ensure stability in Bangladesh’s democratic institutions.
. XC . JRC RSA