DHAKA, Bangladesh

The newly elected 297 lawmakers from the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and the Jamaat-e-Islami-led bloc took oath on Tuesday for the 13th parliament.

The lawmakers were elected last week in historic elections on Thursday, the first since the 2024 July Uprising that ended the 15-year rule of the Awami League party, whose Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina fled to India.

Chief Election Commissioner AMM Nasir Uddin administered the oath to the newly elected lawmakers.

Of the 300-seat parliament, elections on three seats were postponed.

Awami League had held elections in January 2024, which were boycotted by the BNP-Jamaat opposition, and months later, its government was toppled in mass demonstrations, dubbed the July Uprising.

Tarique Rahman elected leader of house

Soon after taking the oath, the BNP held its first parliamentary meeting and elected Tarique Rahman as the leader of the house and nominated him as the prime minister-elect, the party said in a statement on the US social media platform Facebook.

Rahman and his Cabinet of some three dozen members will take the oath later in the day.

BNP, along with allies, won a two-thirds majority with the support of 212 lawmakers.

Notably, the BNP lawmakers did not take a separate oath as members of the Constitutional Reform Council, which was mandated by the referendum held simultaneously with the general election last Thursday.

The Jamaat-led bloc took oath as members of the Constitutional Reform Council but protested the BNP decision.

The Constitutional Reform Council was mandated after all political parties agreed to the July National Charter for reforms in the country, for which a referendum was simultaneously held during the elections last week.

The referendum received an overwhelming “yes” vote.

BNP chairman Tarique, 60, son of former prime minister the late Khaleda Zia and slain President Ziaur Rahman, is set to become prime minister.

Rahman himself returned home last December after 17 years in exile in the United Kingdom.

Besides the 300 elected seats, there are 50 reserved women’s seats in the parliament, which will be nominated by the political parties based on their representation in the parliament once the parliament session begins.

Once Rahman and his Cabinet are sworn in later in the day, the 20-member interim government led by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus will hand over power to the new government.

The interim government was formed after Hasina fled to India on Aug. 5, 2024, following the end of his regime during protests, which saw some 1,400 people, mostly youths, killed and thousands of others injured in the uprising.

Yunus and his team took office on Aug. 8 and held elections last week, resulting in Bangladesh’s first elected government in 18 months.