A Top Candidate for Prime Minister Returns to Bangladesh After 17 Years in Exile

Tarique Rahman, who had managed his party’s political affairs from Britain, is back in his country to campaign in elections.

One of Bangladesh’s top contenders to be prime minister, who had been in exile for nearly two decades as he faced legal troubles at home, returned to the capital, Dhaka, on Thursday, just as the country’s election season got into full swing.

The return of the politician, Tarique Rahman, who had managed the political affairs of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party as its de facto leader from Britain for 17 years, was the latest twist in the country’s disruptive politics.

Mr. Rahman, 60, is gearing up to lead his party in parliamentary elections in February.

In a reversal of political fortunes, Sheikh Hasina, the former prime minister who had once hit Mr. Rahman with dozens of court cases and hounded the B.N.P., is in exile in India. The activities of Ms. Hasina’s party, the Awami League, were outlawed after she was overthrown last year.

Mr. Rahman arrived in Dhaka around noon, accompanied by his wife and daughter. As he left the airport in a large bus, large crowds of party supporters packed the roads along the way, dancing and celebrating his return.

The Awami League’s absence from the polls makes B.N.P. the largest political force in the country. But the months ahead will not be easy for Mr. Rahman or his party. The election is expected to be held in a chaotic period that has been underscored by mob violence, open displays of rising religious intolerance, disagreements over the rules governing the vote and a breakdown of ties with neighboring India.

Speaking to a large crowd upon his return, Mr. Rahman promised that he would work to restore “democratic and economic rights.” He also appeared to be addressing rising anxiety over how extremist forces are taking advantage of the political vacuum, emphasizing the equal treatment of the country’s Hindu, Christian and Buddhist minorities.

“We want to build a Bangladesh together that a mother dreams of — that means we want to build a safe Bangladesh,” he said. “A Bangladesh where, whether it is a woman, a man or a child, if they leave home safely, they can return home safely again.”

Muhammad Yunus, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, has been the head of an interim government after being placed there by the student-led protest movement that toppled Ms. Hasina. In Ms. Hasina’s final weeks in power, her government unleashed brutal force onto the protests. The crackdown killed at least 1,400 people, according to a U.N. fact-finding report, before she sought refuge in India.

Anger over the violence has shaped the political environment since. Mobs have repeatedly attacked the offices of what remains of Ms. Hasina’s Awami League. And the police force, which is being rebuilt after it largely unraveled with Ms. Hasina’s departure, is accused by human rights organizations of continuing a similar partisan approach, targeting Awami League activists without proper due process.

Shafiqul Alam, the press secretary for the interim government, said he hoped that Mr. Rahman’s return could help in what has been a difficult political transition.

“To be honest, there is a political vacuum in Bangladesh,” Mr. Alam said, speaking to reporters outside a church where he attended a Christmas gathering. “It will now be filled up by the return of Tarique Rahman.”

Both Mr. Rahman and Ms. Hasina come from political families.

Mr. Rahman’s father, Zia ur Rahman, took control of the government in the late 1970s after the killing of Mujibur Rahman, also known as Sheikh Mujib, before he, too, was assassinated by other military officers. Tarique Rahman’s mother, Khaleda Zia, became the country’s first female prime minister in 1991. In the decades since, Bangladesh’s politics have largely been shaped by the rivalry between Ms. Zia and Ms. Hasina, who alternated in the top job.

Mr. Rahman’s legal troubles began in 2007, when a caretaker government arrested him on charges of corruption. When he was released on bail the next year, he left for Britain, where he has remained since.

Ms. Hasina’s return as prime minister in 2009 only deepened his troubles, as legal cases against him piled up to more than 80, according to local media.

“He is now acquitted from all the cases,” said Kayser Kamal, one of Mr. Rahman’s attorneys and the general secretary of B.N.P.’s legal wing. “Most of the cases were defamatory in nature.”

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