'Kill Hindu, Attack Hindu': Bangladesh Poll Candidate Admits To 'New Vote Winning Strategy'

Last Updated:January 27, 2026, 00:08 IST

As per intelligence reports, there is a premeditated strategy in place to incite violence against the Hindu minority to consolidate power and polarise the electorate in Bangladesh

In a video, an MP candidate has admitted that for 53 years, politicians have used the strategy of inciting attacks on Hindu areas to win elections in Bangladesh. (Image: News18/video grab)

Days after ousted prime minister Sheikh Hasina came down heavily on the Muhammad Yunus-led interim government of plunging Bangladesh into an “age of terror", a poll candidate has admitted to politicians resorting to inciting communal violence as a “new vote winning strategy".

As Bangladesh nears general elections, its political landscape has come under intense scrutiny with escalating attacks against minorities and bans on political parties like the Awami League.

According to intelligence reports, there is a premeditated strategy in place to incite violence against the Hindu minority to consolidate power and polarise the electorate. Evidence suggests that such communal aggression is not accidental but rather a systematic playbook designed to rally votes through fear and displacement.

In a video, which was accessed by News18, an MP candidate has admitted that for 53 years, politicians have used the strategy of inciting attacks on Hindu areas to win elections. This candidate, who could not be named despite efforts to reach them, has acknowledged that the goal is to polarise voters. The candidate states that those who carry out these attacks are now glorified as “soldiers of Islam", reflecting a deeply rooted systemic violence against religious minorities.

Top intelligence sources have raised serious concerns, indicating that this anti-Hindu intimidation is a “deliberate, rehearsed political playbook" rather than a series of spontaneous incidents.

The sources said this strategy is fuelled by a structured nexus between radical clerics and local political operatives. These clerics have been seen in various clips making hateful remarks and urging the public not to cast their vote for Hindu or non-Muslim candidates, thereby facilitating communal consolidation, they said.

This marginalisation of minorities is taking place alongside a broader crisis of governance. Days after Hasina’s sharp criticism of the Yunus regime, a former Awami League MP denounced the upcoming elections scheduled for February 12 as “illegitimate" and “unconstitutional". Speaking from an undisclosed location, Bahauddin Nasim dismissed the process, saying: “We do not consider it a real election."

Nasim specifically criticised the state-mandated ban on the Awami League, which is the country’s largest and oldest political organisation. He said banning the party’s activities effectively excludes half of the Bangladeshi population from the electoral process.

“The Bangladesh Awami League is a party that originated from the hearts of the people," Nasim said, adding that any election held without the party that led the nation’s liberation struggle is “meaningless" and “impossible".

Nasim’s comments followed a blistering attack by Sheikh Hasina, while addressing a gathering in New Delhi through a pre-recorded audio message, accused Yunus of dismantling democracy and betraying national sovereignty. She said Bangladesh had “plunged into an age of terror" and warned of a “treacherous plot" to barter away the country’s territory and resources to foreign interests.

She said the nation stood at the edge of an abyss, battered by extremist communal forces and foreign perpetrators. The country had become a “vast prison" marked by fear, violence and repression, she alleged.

This was Hasina’s first address to a gathering in India since she arrived in the country following violent protests that led to the fall of her regime in August 2024.

She further claimed that since her ouster on August 5, 2024, Bangladesh had witnessed the collapse of democracy, with human rights trampled, press freedom extinguished, law and order breaking down, and minorities facing persecution. She alleged that mob violence, looting, extortion and chaos had spread from cities to villages, while institutions had been paralysed and justice reduced to a nightmare.

(With agency inputs)

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