Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) acting chairman Tarique Rahman on Saturday completed the formalities to enlist himself on Bangladesh’s voter list and obtain a national identity (NID) card, two days after returning home from more than 17 years of self-exile in London.
The 60-year-old BNP leader visited the Election Commission (EC) office in Dhaka under tight security, where he provided fingerprints and iris scans as part of the biometric enrollment process, news portal tbsnews.net reported. Officials said Rahman had earlier submitted his voter registration application online.
“Tarique Rahman has already filled out the online form and has come to complete the registration by providing his fingerprints and iris scan,” ASM Humayun Kabir, director general of the National Identity Registration Wing of the Election Commission, told reporters.
He is expected to receive his NID card within 24 hours, the official said. Rahman’s daughter, Zaima, also completed her registration formalities on the same day.
Foolproof security arrangements were in place around the EC office premises, with members of the Bangladesh Army, Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), Ansar and police deployed in and around the area.
According to a report in Bengali daily Prothom Alo, Bangladesh first introduced a voter list with photographs and biometric data in 2008 during the military-backed caretaker government led by Fakhruddin Ahmed, following the 2007–2008 political crisis. At the time, Rahman, son of former prime minister Khaleda Zia, was a political prisoner. After his release, he left for London on September 11, 2008, and did not return during the subsequent Sheikh Hasina-led Awami League rule to register as a voter.
After the introduction of the photo voter list, the EC cancelled the previous voter list. Former Election Commission official SM Asaduzzaman, who was director of public relations at the EC Secretariat when the system was introduced, said Rahman did not sign up then, news portal bdnews24 reported, but underlined that the law allows any eligible citizen to be included in the voter list at any time.
Bangladesh is scheduled to go to the polls on February 12. Rahman is set to contest the election from his ancestral Bogura Sadar (Bogura-6) constituency, with BNP leaders having already collected his nomination papers earlier this month.
Meanwhile, the Awami League, which has been banned by the interim government from contesting the elections, raised questions over the legality of Rahman’s inclusion in the voter list after the final roll was prepared. In an article posted on its website, the party claimed Rahman is “receiving one privilege after another, with repeated violations of the law”.
“After the announcement of the election schedule, becoming a new voter is legally prohibited; yet questions have arisen about Tarique Rahman becoming a voter while that schedule was still in effect.
“Moreover, the day was a Saturday, a weekly government holiday. So how was the law followed, and under whose instructions?” it asked.
Earlier in the day, Rahman visited Dhaka University and offered prayers at the grave of slain student leader Sharif Osman Hadi amid heavy security. He also offered prayers at the grave of Bangladesh’s national poet Kazi Nazrul Islam beside the Dhaka University Central Mosque, The Daily Star reported.
Hadi, a prominent figure of the July 2024 uprising that led to the fall of the Sheikh Hasina-led Awami League government, was shot in the head on December 12 during an election campaign in Dhaka. He was airlifted to Singapore for advanced treatment but died of his injuries on December 18. He was buried beside Nazrul Islam’s grave on December 20.
Traffic was halted on both sides of the road from Shahbagh towards Dhaka University during Rahman’s visit, while members of the RAB, Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) and police were deployed along the route, tbsnews.net reported. BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir arrived earlier at the university to accompany Rahman.