Between the Begums, and their parties, a bitter rivalry and vengeful past

In the years that their public rivalry was most bitter, few could have predicted such an end to the “Battle of the Begums” in Bangladesh. With former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia’s passing, her decades-long feud with former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, now in exile in India, will also be put to rest (1991-2025). During that time, the two women alternated tenures in power, taking turns to prosecute the other, and accusing each other of orchestrating violent attacks on the other. 

Condoling her death on Tuesday (December 30, 2025), Ms. Hasina issued a statement extolling Ms. Zia’s contribution to establishing democracy in Bangladesh. Those words hark back to the late 1980s where the two “Begums” had last worked together- one the daughter of the slain founder of the country Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, and the other -the widow of his successor Gen Ziaur Rehman, who was also assassinated, six years after Mujib. Both Mujib and Zia had fought on the same side during Bangladesh’s war of liberation Hasina and Khaleda, the leaders of the Awami League (AL) and the Bangladesh National Party (BNP) respectively, fought on the same side just once,  to oust the autocratic President, Gen. Muhammad Ershad (1982-1990) from power. They both boycotted the 1988 elections, when Gen Ershad’s party, the Jatiya Party (JP), won a whopping and obviously manufactured mandate of 251 out of 300 seats.  As women, the two leaders were powerful orators could not be more different- Ms. Hasina lived with the grief of losing her entire family including her parents and little brother, and was a scrappy politician, not afraid of taking her battle to the streets. Khaleda, who also lived with the grief of her husband’s assassination at their home, described herself as a “shy housewife” of a military officer, ruled more from her living room, while her party men hit the streets. Both engendered the undying loyalty of her followers.

Also read | Former PM Khaleda Zia’s death updates

Gen Ershad eventually agreed to step down in 1990, in the face of massive pro-democracy protests held jointly by the AL and BNP, paving the way for free and fair elections.  In the elections in 1991, the BNP won and Khaleda Zia became Bangladesh’s First woman Prime Minister, and Sheikh Hasina the leader of the opposition, while Gen Ershad was imprisoned on corruption charges. One of her first actions as PM was to turn Bangladesh into a parliamentary democracy, diluting the power of the President of the country. PM Khaleda did not however, reverse the Islamization of Bangladeshi politics that had followed after Sheikh Mujib, including the shift away from a Secular Republic to an Islamic one, that Gen Ershad enshrined through a Constitutional amendment. As relations with Sheikh Hasina soured, Khaleda grew more beholden to her Jamaat e Islami allies- that had been pro-Pakistan during the liberation war. This also strained ties between India and Bangladesh during PM Khaleda’s tenures, as training camps for extremist groups targeting India began to grow. The United States grew closely to the BNP during this time, as it pushed for a gas pipeline across the region with PM Khaleda’s support. Khaleda Zia was more right-wing, unlike other women leaders like her across the subcontinent, who came to politics as widows or daughters of assassinated leaders- Benazir Bhutto, Sonia Gandhi and Chandrika Kumaratunga.

As it became clear that PM Khaleda would not prosecute her father’s killers, and was even gaining political support from them, Sheikh Hasina began to target her more directly, and the entire opposition resigned from the Jatiya Sansad and decided to boycott General elections held in February 1996 which PM Khaleda won with ease as a result. Khaleda regretted the election almost immediately, saying in an interview to this correspondent that she had pleaded with Sheikh Hasina to reconsider the boycott.  Awami League street protests followed, forcing Khaleda Zia to step down in less than a month, and Sheikh Hasina won the next election a few months later. In 2001, the tables turned again, with Khaleda Zia being elected back to power, and in 2008 Sheikh Hasina returned to power. 

For a brief period, a “Third Begum” Rowshan Ershad, the wife of Gen. Ershad also entered the electoral fray while her husband was in jail or unwell (Ershad died in 2019), but the Jatiya Party never won enough seats to mount a challenge to either of the other two Begums. Between Hasina and Khaleda, things grew much worse in the past decade, as the Awami League government cracked down on the opposition, and sent BNP leaders including Khaleda Zia to jail on corruption charges. Ms. Zia’s elder son Tarique Rehman, who returned to Bangladesh just days before his mother’s death went into exile in London, and her younger son Arafat “Koko” Rehman went into exile in South East Asia after serving part of a prison term, never to return. When Koko died, PM Sheikh Hasina attempted to visit Khaled Zia to condole, but was summarily told to leave. Describing the incident in an interview to The Hindu in 2016, Ms. Hasina said she was deeply hurt that she was rebuffed at the Khaleda’s gate, even though she had known her since the time Hasina’s father had promoted Khaleda’s husband in the army. “As a human being, what else can I do? It’s [Khaleda’s] fault, her decision to stay out of elections and I hope she doesn’t make the same mistake next time,” Ms. Hasina said when asked if an election with only one of the two Begums could indeed be free and fair. 

When Hasina had to flee the country in August 2024, something Khaleda predicted would happen, the rivalry endured, and the BNP welcomed the conviction and death sentence that was handed down to Sheikh Hasina in absentia in November this year. Reports suggested the BNP was preparing to field her as a candidate in the upcoming elections in February, as Khaleda was acquitted in cases against her. With her death, and Sheikh Hasina’s exile, Bangladesh now faces an election without either of its two Begums. The real beneficiaries then, as now, to the rivalry of the two Begums are Bangladesh’s radical Islamists and fundamentalists seeking to overthrow centrist politics in the country. The question is whether their parties can chart a different course in the future, or continue down the same vengeful path. 

Published – December 30, 2025 02:29 pm IST