Senior BNP leader Gayeshwar Chandra Roy, a prominent face from Bangladesh’s minority Hindu community, secured victory in a Dhaka constituency during the country’s 13th national parliamentary elections on Friday.
Roy won the Dhaka-3 seat with 99,163 votes, defeating his closest rival, Jamaat-e-Islami candidate Md Shahinur Islam, according to the state-run BSS news agency.
His victory comes against the backdrop of alleged harassment targeting members of the minority Hindu community in recent months. The community has reportedly faced a series of attacks, some of them fatal, following the killing of radical youth leader Sharif Osman Hadi in December.
India has repeatedly voiced concerns over attacks on minorities in Bangladesh, particularly Hindus.
In a separate contest, the only Hindu candidate fielded by the radical Islamist Jamaat-e-Islami was defeated in the Khulna-1 constituency. Krishna Nandi secured 70,346 votes, while BNP candidate Amir Ejaz Khan won comfortably with 1,21,352 votes.
The 13th parliamentary elections are set to determine the government that will replace the interim administration led by Muhammad Yunus. Bilateral ties between India and Bangladesh have remained strained since the interim government took charge after the collapse of the Sheikh Hasina government in August 2024.
The BNP appears headed for a sweeping victory in what is being described as a landmark parliamentary election, positioning the party to return to power after a gap of two decades.
