Bangladeshi and British politics collided to bring down Tulip Siddiq | Salil Tripathi

After allegations of corruption, the former government minister’s family legacy now lies in tatters in both countries

It was unusual to see Muhammad Yunus, a widely respected Nobel laureate and the chief adviser of the unelected interim government of Bangladesh, taking aim at a British minister, accusing Tulip Siddiq of benefiting from “plain robbery” in his home country and calling for her to apologise. But once that happened, things moved swiftly: accusations against the beleaguered treasury minister swirled, she pulled out of an official delegation going to China, she referred herself to Laurie Magnus, the government’s adviser on ministerial standards, and finally this week she resigned from her post. (Siddiq “totally refutes” allegations of corruption.)

This month, the Financial Times reported that Siddiq was given a two-bedroom central London flat by a developer closely associated with her aunt, Sheikh Hasina, the recently ousted longtime leader of Bangladesh. Siddiq had claimed she received the property from her parents, and told Magnus that she had only recently discovered it was a gift from a Bangladeshi businessman. Until 2018, she had lived in a Hampstead flat given to her sister by another businessman with connections to Hasina’s government. She lives at present in a rented property owned by a businessman linked to the British wing of the Awami League, Hasina’s political party. Siddiq was first elected to parliament in 2015, and speaking to supporters after one victory, she singled out Bangladeshi British members of the Awami League for their steadfast backing.

Salil Tripathi is the author of The Colonel Who Would Not Repent: The Bangladesh War and its Unquiet Legacy. His most recent book is The Gujaratis: A Portrait of a Community

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Topics

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