BNP Chairperson and three-time former prime minister Khaleda Zia has passed away (Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji’un). She was 80.
She breathed her last at 6am on Tuesday while undergoing treatment at the Evercare Hospital in Dhaka.
Her death has been confirmed by BNP’s Information and Technology Affairs Secretary AKM Wahiduzzaman and her former press secretary, Maruf Kamal Khan. BNP’s Media Cell also confirmed the news on its verified Facebook page.
Earlier, at 2am on Monday, Dr AZM Zahid Hossain told the media, “Begum Zia is passing through a very critical moment. Therefore, in this situation, on behalf of her family, all we can say to the nation is to pray to the Almighty.”
Former prime minister Khaleda Zia was admitted to the Evercare Hospital in Bashundhara on 23 November. On 27 November, she was transferred from a cabin to the Critical Care Unit (CCU) after developing a lung infection.
The 80-year-old Khaleda had been suffering from various complex and long-term health complications. These included liver complications, kidney complications, heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, arthritis, and infection-related issues.
Khaleda Zia was born on 15 August 1945 in Dinajpur. Her father, Iskandar Majumder’s home was in Shreepur village of Parshuram, Feni district. Her mother, Taiba Begum, was born in Chandanbari, Panchagarh district. She was the third of their three daughters and two sons.
After her birth, she was named “Khaleda Khanam.” As she was very beautiful, family members called her “Putul.” That became her nickname. She received her primary education at St Joseph’s Convent. Later, she passed her Matriculation from Dinajpur Government School and Intermediate (Higher Secondary) from Dinajpur Surendranath College.
BNP Chairperson and former three-time Prime Minister Khaleda Zia has passed away (Inna Lillahi wa Inna Ilayhi Raji’un). A lifelong fighter and uncompromising in matters of the country and democracy, Khaleda Zia died at 6 a.m. on Tuesday (December 30) at Evercare Hospital in Dhaka. She was 80 years old at the time of her death.
After the assassination of her husband, BNP founder and former president Ziaur Rahman, at a very young age, she joined the party in 1982. From being a homemaker, she devoted herself to the movement of building the party and the nation. In 1983, she was elected chairperson of the BNP.
She came to prominence by leading from the front in the anti-Ershad movement against autocracy in the 1990s. As a result, in 1991, the BNP, founded by her late husband, came to power.
As the country’s first female prime minister, she played a historic role whenever democracy stumbled, earning the title “Uncompromising”.
Biography
Khaleda Zia was born on 15 August, 1945, in Jalpaiguri (now part of Dinajpur). She served as prime minister of Bangladesh three times, for a total of 10 years: from 1991 to 1996, briefly in 1996, and again from 2001 to 2006. She was the first female prime minister of Bangladesh and the second female prime minister in the Muslim world.
After February 1996, she held her second term as prime minister for a few weeks. Later, amid strong objections over the caretaker government issue, she dissolved the Jatiya Sangsad and called elections. In that election, her party became the main opposition in the parliament, and she was elected Leader of the Opposition. Khaleda Zia served as Leader of the Opposition from 1996 to 2001, and again after the 2008 elections when the Awami League formed government.
Paternal Home
Her paternal residence was in Mudipara, Dinajpur town. The ancestral home was in Majumdar Bari, Sripur village, Fulgazi upazila of Feni district. Her father, Iskandar Majumdar, was a businessman. In 1919, he moved from Feni to Jalpaiguri, where he completed his matriculation while living with his sister and later became involved in the tea business. He married in Jalpaiguri in 1937 and lived there until 1947. Her mother, Begum Tayeba Majumdar, was a homemaker.
Education
Khaleda Zia began her schooling at the age of five at Mission School in Dinajpur. She later enrolled at Dinajpur Girls’ School. In 1960, she completed her matriculation from Dinajpur Government Girls’ High School. Afterwards, she studied at Surendranath College.
Marriage
In August 1960, she married Ziaur Rahman, whose nickname was Kamal. At that time, he was a captain in the Pakistan Army, serving as a DFI officer in Dinajpur.
Family Life
In 1965, Khaleda Zia moved with her husband to what was then West Pakistan. She lived with him in Karachi until March 1969, after which they returned to Dhaka. After a short stay in Joydebpur, she moved to Chittagong when her husband was posted there, living in the Soloshahar area. At the beginning of the Liberation War, Khaleda Zia went into hiding for some time. On May 16, she travelled by river to Dhaka and stayed at her elder sister Khurshid Jahan’s house until June 17. On July 2, Pakistani soldiers detained her along with her two sons from the residence of S Abdullah in Siddheshwari. She remained confined at Dhaka Cantonment until 15 December, 1971. She was released on 16 December, when Bangladesh achieved independence.
Until entering politics, Khaleda Zia was an ordinary homemaker. Even during Ziaur Rahman’s presidency, Khaleda Zia’s presence in politics was not noticeable.
Of her two sons, the elder Tarique Rahman was born on 20 November, 1967, and is now BNP acting chairman. Her younger son, Arafat Rahman Koko, was born on 12 August, 1970. He passed away on 24 January, 2015, at the University Malaya Hospital in Malaysia due to cardiac arrest. Alongside business, Arafat Rahman was also involved with the Bangladesh Cricket Board and City Club.
Politics
On 30 May, 1981, former president Ziaur Rahman was killed in a military coup. Following appeals from leaders and activists of the BNP, Khaleda Zia joined the party on 3 January, 1982. On 24 March, 1982, Army Chief Lieutenant General HM rshad ousted president Justice Abdus Sattar. In March 1983, Khaleda Zia became senior vice-chairman of the BNP. On 1 April, 1983, she delivered a speech at the party’s meeting. When Justice Sattar fell ill, she assumed responsibility as acting chairperson of the party. On 10 May, 1984, she was elected chairperson of the BNP unopposed.
Leadership in Movements
In 1983, under Khaleda Zia’s leadership, a seven-party alliance was formed. At the same time, movements began against Ershad’s military rule. Starting in September 1983, Khaleda Zia led the BNP into the seven-party alliance to launch the anti-Ershad movement. Under her leadership, the seven-party alliance also coordinated joint programmes with the 15-party alliance led by the Awami League. The movement continued in five phases until 1986.
However, on 21 March, 1986, Awami League President Sheikh Hasina decided to participate in elections under Ershad’s regime, which disrupted the united movement. The 15-party alliance split into eight-party and five-party groups. The eight-party alliance joined the elections, while Khaleda Zia continued to lead the seven-party and five-party alliances in rejecting the elections and sustaining the movement.
From 1987, Khaleda Zia launched the “Remove Ershad (Ershad Hotao)” one-point movement. As a result, Ershad dissolved the parliament, and the united movement resumed once again.
Jatiya Sangsad Elections
After eight years of relentless and uncompromising struggle, the BNP won an absolute majority in the parliamentary elections held on 27 February, 1991. Khaleda Zia was elected prime minister of Bangladesh. In that election, she contested five constituencies and won all five. Her government established the parliamentary system in the country. On 2 April, she introduced a bill in the parliament on behalf of the government. On the same day, she brought the 11th Amendment Bill, which enabled Chief Justice Shahabuddin Ahmed, head of the caretaker government, to return to his post. On 6 August, 1991,the parliament unanimously passed both bills.
On 15 February, 1996, the sixth national election was held. All opposition parties boycotted the election. That Parliament lasted only 15 days, during which Khaleda Zia was Prime Minister. Under pressure, the caretaker government bill was passed in the Sixth Jatiya Sangsad session, and Khaleda Zia resigned.
In the seventh national election of 1996, the BNP won 116 seats, not enough to form a government. The Awami League won 147 seats and formed a government with the support of the Jatiya Party. In the seventh parliament, the BNP emerged as the largest opposition party in Bangladesh’s history. Khaleda Zia served as Leader of the Opposition during the Awami League’s five-year rule.
Ahead of the eighth national parliamentary election, BNP formed a four-party alliance with Jamaat-e-Islami, Islami Oikya Jote, and the Jatiya Party. In the 1 October, 2001 election, the alliance won a landslide victory and formed the government. Khaleda Zia again served as prime minister in this parliament. The term ended on 28 October, 2006, amid the political crisis known as “One-Eleven”. During that government’s tenure, she was imprisoned. Despite pressure, she did not leave the country.
In the ninth national parliamentary election held in December 2008, the four-party alliance led by Khaleda Zia suffered a heavy defeat. The four-party alliance secured only 32.
On 5 January, 2014, Khaleda Zia’s alliance, along with many other political parties in Bangladesh, boycotted the tenth national parliamentary election.
Leaving the Cantonment Residence
On 13 November, 2010, Khaleda Zia left her residence of 28 years. She alleged that she had been forced out of the house. After independence in 1972, she and Ziaur Rahman moved into House No. 6 on Shaheed Mainul Road, as Ziaur Rahman was then serving as Adjutant General. On 30 May, 1981, former president Ziaur Rahman was killed in a failed military coup in Chittagong. On 12 June, the then acting president Abdus Sattar officially allocated the cantonment residence to Khaleda Zia.
Arrests
After joining BNP as a member on 3 January, 1982, Khaleda Zia was arrested five times. During the anti-Ershad movement, she was arrested on 28 November, 1983, 3 May, 1984, and 11 November, 1987.
During the “One-Eleven” caretaker government, she was arrested on 3 September, 2007, on corruption charges. On 11 September, 2008, she was released following a directive from the Supreme Court. On 8 February, 2018, she was sentenced to five years in prison in the Zia Orphanage Trust corruption case and jailed in the abandoned central prison.
Illness
On 25 March, 2020, Khaleda Zia was released under two conditions by an executive order of the Awami League-led government. Since then, she had been residing at her Gulshan home. Her release term was extended several times, every six months.
Khaleda Zia suffered from liver cirrhosis and other complex illnesses, for which she received treatment multiple times at Evercare Hospital in Dhaka. Until the last days of the Awami League government, repeated appeals were made by her party and family to allow her advanced treatment abroad, but the then government blocked those efforts.
On 5 August last year, the Awami League government fell and on the following day, 6 August, Khaleda Zia was freed by presidential order.
On 8 January, the former prime minister of Bangladesh travelled to London for advanced treatment. At the London Clinic, she was under the care of specialist physicians Professor Patrick Kennedy and Professor Jennifer Cross. After four months, she returned to Bangladesh on 6 May.
Afterwards, she was frequently taken to Evercare Hospital in Dhaka for regular checkups. Most recently, on 23 November, former prime minister Khaleda Zia was admitted to Evercare Hospital in Bashundhara. On 27 November, when an infection was detected in her lungs, she was transferred from the cabin to the CCU.
Attempts were made to take her abroad for treatment, but her physical condition was not stable enough. However, foreign specialist doctors were brought in twice to try to improve her condition.
