Just days before Bangladesh gears up to hold one of its most decisive general elections, the banned political party Awami League (AL) has come out in full public glare in India where their supremo, former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, has been living as a political refugee since she was ousted by students and civilians of that country, who revolted against her authoritarian rule. Bangladesh is holding its next round of parliamentary elections on 12 February, in which Awami League will not be able to participate as the political party has been officially banned from contesting the polls. On May 10, 2025, the interim government of Bangladesh, led by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus, invoked the Anti-Terrorism Act to ban the party’s activities, including meetings, rallies, and digital presence.
Following the government’s order, the Bangladesh Election Commission suspended the Awami League’s registration on May 12, 2025, legally barring it from contesting elections. On Saturday, for the first time since her arrival in India on 5 August, 2024, Hasina, along with other senior AL leaders, addressed a press conference for the first time, which was held under the aegis of the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of South Asia in New Delhi.
“Bangladesh is battered and bleeding today; Our once serene and fertile land has been reduced to a wounded and blood-soaked landscape. The entire country has become a prison and execution ground. A valley of death where one can hear only the cries of the people,” Hasina said in an audio message, adding that “extremist communal forces” and “foreign perpetrators” are at play in Bangladesh.
Hasina has been Bangladesh’s longest-serving Prime Minister. She said her ousting was a “meticulously engineered conspiracy” and a “treacherous plot” enacted by Yunus, who did this in collusion with “militant accomplices.”
Through her entire seven-eight minutes speech at FCC, Hasina went on to call Yunus “national enemy, murderous and fascist” relentlessly. She said a “pall of fear” has fallen on the country due to Yunus’ policies. In an effort to mobilise the citizens of Bangladesh, the former PM said, “Please do not give up now … At this darkest time we reaffirm our destination to help you to restore the thriving homeland that was snatched away from you.”
She even laid out a five-point action-plan in order to give shape to a “unified Bangladesh” which includes removing Yunus regime without which she said Bangladesh can never have free and fair elections, putting an end on daily acts of violences, ensuring safety of minority groups and women, putting an end to politically motivated campaigns against opposition political parties and civil society groups and lastly, she urged the UN to conduct an “impartial” investigation into the events of 2024 that led to her removal.
A.K. Abdul Momen, senior leader of the party and former Foreign Minister of Bangladesh said, the country has descended into an “economic collapse, lawlessness and anarchy.” “Awami League enjoys overwhelming public support,” Momen said, who was addressing virtually from the United States, and called the upcoming elections as a “sham”. “This is a survival issue for Bangladesh.”
“If Bangladesh is allowed to slide further into extremism and terrorism. The consequences will not remain confined within its borders,” he highlighted. Mohammad Ali Arafat, another senior AL leader, who was Hasina’s spokesperson, called for a return of democracy in Bangladesh.
“We need the power to get it (democracy) back into the country … Simple solution is to hold free and fair and inclusive elections,” Arafat said, the 12 February elections are going to be “One-sided, preordained and rigged.” This comes from a party, which has been itself accused of holding elections by misusing the state machinery. Hasina and her government have been accused by the opposition parties of Bangladesh and even by the international community of manipulating three consecutive general elections in 2014, 2018, and 2024 to remain in power.
India, which has recently renewed its engagement with the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and Jamaat-e-Islami Party, has remained silent on Awami League’s activities that are being carried out in India.
‘Awami League Is De Jure Government’
On 17 January, Awami League leaders held yet another media conference where they said they continue to represent themselves as the ‘de jure’ government of Bangladesh.
According to Bangladesh’s former Education Minister Mohibul Hasan Chowdhury, “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.”
This is the reason why those Awami League leaders, who held a ministerial portfolio, had asked not to be referred as “former” ministers because they believe constitutionally they still hold those positions.
Chowdhury and some others of the party reside in India.
Hasan Mahmud, another senior leader of the party and the last Foreign Minister of Bangladesh currently living in Europe, launched a scathing attack at the UN Human Rights body, which said 1,400 individuals were killed between July 1 and August 15, 2024 under Hasina’s regime. The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) released the report in November 2025. The AL has even threatened to submit their complaints to the UN calling the earlier report “biased, one-sided & fabricated.”
So far, Hasina has given over ten interviews to media outlets in which she not only called out the interim government of Bangladesh but also defended her actions and sought to put the blame on the July 2024 uprising to “external forces”.
Sreeradha Datta, Professor, Jindal School of International Affairs, OP Jindal Global University, and author ‘Bangladesh on a New Journey: Moving beyond the Regional Identity’ told ABP Live, “Awami League is unable to contest the upcoming election in Bangladesh but they are one of the oldest and largest political party. They still have a large number of followers in Bangladesh and would need to find ways and means to return and find its political space.”
“This is the beginning of what I see as a small incremental step towards that. However a large section of Bangladeshis will find it difficult to forget and forgive Awami League without any expression of remorse,” she added.