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Amid attacks on minorities, BNP's Gayeshwar Chandra Roy wins from Dhaka constituency
Gayeshwar Chandra Roy, a senior BNP leader from the minority Hindu community, won a Dhaka constituency on Friday.
As Tarique Rahman-led Bangladesh Nationalist Party recorded a landslide win in the national elections held on February 12, one of the BNP candidates' victory has stood out. Gayeshwar Chandra Roy, a senior BNP leader from the minority Hindu community, won a Dhaka constituency on Friday. Track updates on Bangladesh election results
Roy won the Dhaka-3 seat with 99,163 votes, defeating his nearest rival, Jamaat-e-Islami candidate Md Shahinur Islam, the state-run BSS news agency reported. Another Hindu candidate, fielded by the Jamaat-e-Islami party in Khulna-1 constituency, lost to the BNP candidate. Jamaat's Krishna Nandi received 70,346 votes and lost to BNP's Amir Ejaz Khan who secured 1,21,352 votes.
Roy's win comes at a time when attacks against the members of minority Hindu community have increased following the killing of student leader Osman Hadi in December.
Attacks against Hindu minorities
The attacks on the Hindu community also led to a strain in the ties between India and Bangladesh as New Delhi reacted strongly to the violence following Hadi's killing and lynching of a Hindu garment factory worker, Dipu Chandra Das. India described the “unremitting hostilities” against minorities in Bangladesh as a matter of “grave concern” and demanded punishment for those involved in the killing of Das.
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In January, India again pressed Bangladesh to “swiftly and firmly” deal with attacks on minorities and termed it “troubling” that attempts were being made to attribute the incidents to extraneous reasons.
Setbacks to India-Bangladesh ties
One of the major setback to the ties between India with its neighbour Bangladesh happened when former prime minister was ousted and she fled to India following the student-led uprising of 2024.
In the run-up to the Bangladesh elections, the BNP and other political parties have called on India to return Hasina to Dhaka, especially after the former PM was sentenced to death for the violent crackdown on student protestors during the July uprising. While Hasina has largely remained off the limelight, in January 2026, Hasina shocked Dhaka with an address from Delhi where she called on citizens to rise up against the interim government led by Muhammad Yunus.
