From party castaway to independent victor, Bangladesh’s ‘Mother of Ducks’ rises unbowed, undefeated, unapologetic
Originally published on Global Voices
Image provided by Rumeen Farhana. Used with permission.
Forget the “Mother of Dragons,” in Bangladesh, a different matriarch has taken flight, the “Mother of Ducks.” If you’ve read the news, scrolled online, or even glanced at a screen in Bangladesh lately, you’ve probably learned of Rumeen Farhana. She’s currently occupying more headspace in the national psyche than anyone else.
Rumeen Farhana is a Bangladeshi barrister and politician previously affiliated with the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), serving as its co-international affairs secretary. She entered politics under the mentorship of the former prime minister Khaleda Zia.
For years, Farhana has been the unmistakable face of BNP in the Awami regime. As a Member of Parliament, she was often the solitary, piercing voice challenging the Awami League’s hegemony to its face. Yet, in a twist that mirrors the volatile nature of Bangladeshi politics, the 2026 elections saw her not as the party’s vanguard, but as a castaway.
She won the Brahmanbaria-2 constituency as an independent candidate by a margin of 38,000 votes in the recently concluded 2026 Bangladeshi general election. After failing to secure a nomination from the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), she contested as an independent with her now-iconic “duck” symbol, and was later expelled from the party. The BNP administration had instead supported a candidate from an allied party against her.
Since the duck was her official election symbol, she sat down for a press meet on February 13th with a literal, living duck curled up in her lap. The internet, doing what it does best, immediately lost its mind and crowned her the “Mother of Ducks.”
The internet was flooded with posts dubbing her the “Mother of Ducks.” Fair use.
Of all women candidates in this and the past elections, Rumeen has endured the most abject, horrific, and relentless forms of online and offline harassment. She had stood against her own party, the nation’s tide, violent attackers, and pretty much every form of populist political rhetoric that dominates Bangladeshi society. Throughout the election, political parties and non-partisan users from across the spectrum continually attacked, vilified, and released the worst forms of AI-generated hate and sexual content against her. Yet, despite all odds, the “Mother of Ducks” remains unbowed, undefeated, and unapologetically herself.
In this exclusive interview with Abhimanyu Bandyopadhyay of Global Voices, she speaks about her rupture with the BNP leadership, allegations of internal corruption, Bangladesh’s deepening gender fault line, and the shrinking space for dissent.
Abhimanyu Bandyopadhyay (AB): You’ve frequently alleged that during the recent national parliamentary elections, major political parties deployed millions of taka (BDT) and online bot armies against you. As an independent candidate, did you genuinely believe you could pull off a win against such organized forces?
Rumeen Farhana (RF): Yes, I did. See, my politics revolves around Bangladesh’s most marginalized working-class people. So, I had to bet my everything on those unheard voices.
What gave me confidence was the response I was getting on the ground. From day one, my campaign was all about welfare. I went door-to-door, spoke to them personally, listened to their problems, and gradually people came forward on their own. It has been my good fortune that they accepted me with such spontaneity and affection. I have never practiced identity politics, never weaponized religion for political gain, and never used hollow nationalism as a tool.
Throughout the campaign, my core mantra was to address my constituents’ demands and needs. And I think people sensed that I wasn’t there to cash in. That I wouldn’t walk away from a position or be bought off with money. And because of that trust, I didn’t need any flashy rallies or expensive showdowns to prove my credibility.
AB: In Brahmanbaria-2 constituency, both the BNP alliance and Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami fielded candidates who are Islamic clerics, suggesting that religious influence was a significant factor in the constituency. Did you face any difficulty in making yourself acceptable to voters?
RF: Not at all. There is an enormous gulf between the manufactured reality of Facebook bot accounts and the reality on the ground. The working-class people in the villages are far more transparent and open-minded than we give them credit for. Their daily struggle for food, clothing, and shelter is so intense that they simply do not have the luxury of indulging in any social media delulu.
I went to them exactly as I am. I refused to feign a persona just to appear more acceptable. That would have been dishonest. The fact that they accepted me is clearly proven by the election results. I am even grateful to those who did not vote for me, who criticized me harshly, or attacked me with inappropriate language. Because their behavior inspired many ordinary people to stand more firmly in my favor.
Rumeen Farhana with her pet duck. Screenshot from YouTube video by Campus Times. Fair use.
AB: Why did you decide to contest as an independent candidate?
RF: I have been working in this constituency since 2017. In 2018, I was asked to step aside for a senior leader, with the promise that 2024 would be my turn.
In 2024, the party again finalized my candidacy. Even the current Home Minister, Salahuddin Ahmed, called me to confirm that the Chairman himself had confirmed my seat. Then, suddenly, everything changed.
In Bangladesh, major political parties largely operate on two things: money and sycophancy. If you can provide both, your nomination is secure. I had neither. So what happened was perhaps inevitable.
Look at the hypocrisy. The Ameer of Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami recently said that no woman can rise to the party’s top leadership. Women who join Jamaat do so knowing this reality. But those of us in the BNP believed that there would be no such gender based discrimination. Yet, in the end, not a single woman secured nomination independently of male patronage. Only three percent of nominees were women, and almost all of them inherited either their father’s or husband’s seat.
If I only knew that it would require a man’s shadow to secure a ticket in BNP, I would never have gone there. We criticize Jamaat, but can anyone hold a top position in the BNP other than a member of the Zia family? Aren’t these two sides of the same coin?
The day I decided to contest as an independent candidate, I knew that I could be expelled from the party. Although I didn’t expect it to happen so soon.
There is also a personal cycle here. My father (Oli Ahad) was a freedom fighter in the liberation movement and also a founding member of the Awami League. In 1973, when the Awami League was at the height of its power, he contested as an independent candidate and won. Fifty-three years later, history repeated itself. I am the same age now that he was then. Sometimes I feel it’s all part of God’s plan. If Baba (father) were alive today, he would have been immensely proud.
AB: How difficult is it for a woman to pursue politics in Bangladesh’s current socio-political climate?
RF: It is exhaustingly difficult. In Bangladesh, we have this strange paradox. We’ve had women in top administration for decades, yet we have an insane level of misogyny embedded in our collective unconscious. Sometimes, I get the feeling that a large section of our society would only truly feel at peace if women were erased from the public sphere entirely.
Let me give you an example of how deep this goes. I have many well-wishers who are highly educated people with degrees from prestigious foreign universities. They come up to me and say, “You know, Rumeen, there isn’t a better female orator than you.” I usually just smile and ask them a simple question: “Who among the men is better?”
People literally cannot process a reality where a woman’s merit isn’t qualified by her gender. So, they try to tuck me back into that neat little “female” box to make it feel less threatening.
Over the last sixteen years, you won’t find a single man in my former party who stood as vocally or as fearlessly in the line of fire as I did. But as a nation, we have this systemic, almost cellular resistance to giving a woman her due. We’ll cheer for her, sure, but we hate to admit she’s the best in the room. It’s not like we can’t win an election; it’s the system that’s gatekeeping us from contesting.
AB: Regarding attacks on women, we saw the Awami League’s “Helmet Bahini” (helmet brigade) do it, and we’ve seen similar patterns under the interim government. On February 20, at midnight, just one day after the elected government was established, you were attacked at the Shaheed Minar by BNP supporters. What is your take on this?
RF: Right now, the biggest threat to the BNP is the BNP itself. They secured a two-thirds majority in Parliament. The Awami League is not currently active in the field. Therefore, they are running an unbalanced parliament alongside their former allies. If they cannot restrain and civilize their own cadres, the BNP is headed for dark days.
However, when I look ten or fifteen years down the road, I struggle to see a place for the BNP in the long-term future of Bangladeshi politics. I believe our political landscape will likely return to a two-party system. On one side, there will be Jamaat and its allies, and on the other, the Awami League and the left. I don’t think the BNP can survive by trying to hold the middle ground unless they treat their two-thirds majority as a threat and implement constant checks and balances. If they don’t refine themselves, if they don’t strictly monitor their workers, they will lose their public connection soon.
AB: Do you think your victory will inspire more women to join politics?
RF: I hope so. As of now, I’m already feeling a shift. But I do have a concern. Many women in Bangladesh internalize a permanent victim identity. I haven’t seen this pattern as strongly in the West or even in India. This likely stems from years of oppression that have embedded deep insecurities within them. The next generation must move beyond this mindset. Dear girls, trust your own strength, fix your gaze on your target, and be prepared for the sheer level of patience, labor, and sacrifice required to get there. Bangladesh’s political culture suffers from a chronic lack of well-educated people. Even when such individuals do enter, they get systematically sidelined . If we want to change the trajectory of this nation, we need more educated individuals, especially women, to step into politics.