Nurul Haque Nur, who rose to prominence in national politics through the student movement, received an invitation on Tuesday to join the cabinet after winning the Patuakhali–3 constituency in the 13th parliamentary election.
Nur’s political profile was shaped by anti-government student activism.
He enrolled in the Department of English at the University of Dhaka in the 2013–14 academic year and lived as a resident student at Muhsin Hall. He served as organising secretary of the Association of English Learners and as deputy human resource development secretary of the Muhsin Hall unit of Bangladesh Chhatra League.
He gained national recognition in 2018 through the quota reform movement in public sector recruitment. At the time, he was joint convener of the Bangladesh Sadharon Chhatro Odhikar Sangrakkhan Parishad (Bangladesh General Students’ Rights Protection Council).
In March 2019, he was elected vice-president (VP) of the Dhaka University Central Students’ Union (Ducsu) and served until June 2020.
He also worked as convener of the Chhatro Jubo O Probashi Odhikar Parishad (Students’, Youth and Expatriates’ Rights Council).
In October 2021, he formed the Gono Odhikar Parishad with Reza Kibria as convener and served as member secretary until June 2023. In July 2023, he became president of the party, which secured registration from the Election Commission in 2024.
In the 2026 election, he contested as a candidate of the BNP-led alliance and won the Patuakhali–3 seat with 73,934 votes, using the ‘Truck’ electoral symbol.
Earlier, he had been active in movements demanding fair prices for paddy, reforms concerning Dhaka University-affiliated colleges, justice for the killings of Nusrat and Abrar, and protests against India’s Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and National Register of Citizens (NRC).
Nur’s political career has been marked by multiple attacks, arrests and legal cases, which his party describes as politically motivated. These include attacks by Bangladesh Chhatra League and Muktijuddho Mancha in 2018 and 2019, cases filed under the Digital Security Act in 2020 and 2021, arrest and torture during the quota movement in 2024, and a serious assault in Kakrail in 2025 that required medical treatment abroad.
Having navigated repeated controversy and confrontation, he is now set to assume state responsibilities in the labour and expatriates sector, marking his transition from student activism to a position within the structures of power.
