‘Her Legacy Will Guide Our Partnership’: PM Modi Recalls 2015 Dhaka Meet on Khaleda Zia’s Death

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Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday (December 30) expressed his condolences over the death of Bangladesh’s first woman prime minister, Khaleda Zia, saying her contributions to the country’s development and to India-Bangladesh relations would always be remembered.Taking to X, Modi wrote, “Deeply saddened to learn about the passing away of former Prime Minister and BNP Chairperson Begum Khaleda Zia in Dhaka. Our sincerest condolences to her family and all the people of Bangladesh. May the Almighty grant her family the fortitude to bear this tragic loss.”“I recall my warm meeting with her in Dhaka in 2015. We hope that her vision and legacy will continue to guide our partnership. May her soul rest in peace,” he added.

Zia breathed her last early on Tuesday while undergoing treatment at Evercare Hospital in Dhaka. She had been suffering from multiple complex and chronic ailments, including liver and kidney complications, heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, arthritis and infection-related problems. She was 80.A three-time prime minister and chairperson of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), Zia played a key role in restoring democracy in Bangladesh after a period of turbulent military rule and went on to dominate the country’s politics for decades.Her personal physician, Dr AZM Zahid Hossain, confirmed that she passed away early Tuesday at Evercare Hospital, where she had been admitted on November 23 for routine tests. Doctors later detected a chest infection and kept her under observation.

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Her condition worsened on November 27, leading to her transfer to the hospital’s Coronary Care Unit (CCU). In the early hours of Tuesday, Professor Hossain, a member of the medical board overseeing her treatment, described her condition as “very critical.” As her health deteriorated, Zia’s elder son and BNP acting chairman Tarique Rahman, along with other family members, rushed to the hospital.In 1991, Zia became the first woman prime minister of Bangladesh and the second in the Muslim world after Pakistan’s Benazir Bhutto. She was 35 at the time and had been widowed for a decade following the death of her husband, Ziaur Rahman.She returned to power after the BNP was re-elected in 1996, though the government lasted only 12 days, after which the party became the largest opposition in Bangladesh’s history. In 1999, Zia formed a four-party coalition and led agitations against the then Awami League government, eventually returning to office in 2001.In 2006, she stepped down, handing over power to a caretaker administration.Khaleda Zia was born on August 15, 1946, to Taiyaba and Iskandar Majumdar in the Dinajpur district of undivided India. Her father migrated from Jalpaiguri, where the family ran a tea business, to what was then East Pakistan after Partition.(Written with agency inputs.)