Bangladesh Elections: Hasan Mahmud, senior leader of Bangladesh Awami League party, who last served as the Foreign Minister, before being ousted during the July 2024 protests, has said that former Prime Minister of Bangladesh Sheikh Hasina was brought to India under full protocol extended by the Indian government.
Speaking to reporters in New Delhi on a report released in November 2025 by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) on the July 2024 uprising, Mahmud said, “The relationship between Bangladesh and India is bonded by blood because you shared your blood during our independence. Thousands of Indian Army soldiers sacrificed their lives for the independence of Bangladesh. Relationship between India and Bangladesh was going to new heights under the leadership of Sheikh Hasina and your Prime Minister Narendra Modi.”
Mahmud, who was a key minister in Hasina’s cabinet also said, “Relationship between India and Awami League is also historic. So this historic relationship is still there. And, Sheikh Hasina came to India with full protocol with a government helicopter and security. India and Indian people are in support of democracy and rule of law. Indian people also support the protection of human rights, protection of freedom of speech.”
Hasina escaped to India on August 5, 2024 as she faced massive protests led mainly by the students and thereafter by civilians. Her ouster gave a jolt to India-Bangladesh bilateral ties even as the Narendra Modi government has become her closest ally during Hasina’s fifteen-year rule. As the Awami League government was overthrown from power, an interim government under Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus took charge.
External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar stated in Parliament in August 2024 that Hasina requested approval to come to India at “very short notice” as the situation in Bangladesh worsened. In December 2025, as the clamour for Hasina’s extradition grew louder, Jaishankar said, her stay is a “personal decision” influenced by the specific, dangerous circumstances that forced her to leave Bangladesh.
Elections Won’t Bring Stability
Bangladesh has said it will be holding parliamentary elections and a constitutional referendum on February 12. However, Awami League has been barred from contesting the polls.
“Currently, there is ant-India politics going on in Bangladesh. But India is our immediate neighbour. We must have good relations with India,” said Mahmud, who was also the Information Minister of Bangladesh, at the Press Club of India.
He also said, even if Bangladesh were to hold elections it will not bring stability in that country rather there will be more unrest.
“They (interim government) know that if they allow Awami League to participate in the elections then we will win by a huge margin and we will have a landslide victory … There will be unrest in Bangladesh even after elections,” said Mahmud.
Bangladesh’s former Education Minister Mohibul Hasan Chowdhury, who was also present during the conference said
“There is a de jure position and there is a de facto position. De jure until the Constitution is changed, in a duly elected parliament it remains as it is. But the de facto government is whoever is sitting in Bangladesh right now, the interim regime. So our position is that it is an illegal regime … We are the de jure government,” said Chowdhury.
On the OHCHR report, Mahmud said it is “biased, one-sided & fabricated” even as he questioned the casualty figures mentioned in that report. The UN report had said that under Hasina as many as 1,400 people were killed during the July 2024 uprising as she directed security forces to go after the protestors.
Describing the post-August situation, Mahmud claimed that more than 400,000 Awami League leaders and supporters were arrested, with more than 100,000 still in jail, and alleged deaths in custody and widespread political persecution. He cited recent incidents of mob lynching and said selective responses from the UN Human Rights Commission “exposed deep bias”.
He also said that the Awami League will submit a “formal objection” to the UN Secretary General and relevant UN bodies against the OHCHR report and its authors. He also accused the OHCHR of “endorsing a narrative that supports oppression rather than the oppressed.”
