Bangladesh stands at an extraordinary moment in its political evolution. The February 2026 general elections, held in parallel with a nationwide referendum on the July Charter, will be the country’s first democratic exercise since the dramatic toppling of Sheikh Hasina’s government during the July–August 2024 “Monsoon Revolution."

For most Bangladeshis, this election represents a break from the past—an opportunity to reshape institutions, rewrite the social contract, and determine whether the country moves towards pluralism or ideological polarisation. For India, particularly its strategically sensitive northeastern states, the stakes are just as high, if not higher.

The contours of Bangladesh’s emerging political order could profoundly influence security dynamics, connectivity initiatives, and regional power equations, with ripple effects across the entire eastern subcontinent.

Hasina’s fall shattered a political duopoly that had dominated Bangladesh since the 1990s. With the Awami League banned after Hasina’s conviction for crimes against humanity, the electoral space has opened dramatically yet unpredictably. The Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) enters the race as the nominal frontrunner, but polls suggest nearly two-thirds of voters remain undecided, highlighting the volatility of a post-revolution society still searching for direction. The student-driven National Citizen Party (NCP), which helped galvanise the 2024 uprising, has gained moral capital but remains organisationally weak. Its ambitious call for a “Second Republic" and a new constitutional order appeals to younger voters, yet it lacks the grassroots machinery to win big in the short term. The most consequential shift, however, is the resurgence of Jamaat-e-Islami. Suppressed for over a decade, Jamaat has re-emerged through its student wing’s electoral victories and its opportunistic alignment with public disillusionment. The spectre of a BNP–Jamaat coalition reminiscent of the 2001–2006 era raises questions about the ideological direction Bangladesh may........

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