Who is Nitai Roy Chowdhury, the lone Hindu minister in Bangladesh’s Tarique Rahman government?

Nitai Roy Chowdhury presently serves as a BNP vice-president, and won from the Magura-2 constituency in the elections that took place on February 12.

On February 17, changing the nation's political landscape with a remarkable victory, Bangladesh Nationalist Party's (BNP) chairman Tarique Rahman was sworn in the country's prime minister.

Among the BNP lawmakers who were sworn in ministers who sworn in, Nitai Roy Chowdhury is the only Hindu minister in the cabinet.

Chowdhury was born in Hatbaria village in Mohammadpur, Magura district on January 7, 1949. He concluded his schooling in Alokdia Pukhuria High School, and graduated from Magura Government College.

Later, Chowdhury pursued his higher studies in law and completed his master's course from the University of Dhaka.

Chowdhury married Jhuma, and the pair have three children. Their son Debasish Roy Chowdhury currently serves as a judge in the High Court of Bangladesh.

Their daughter, Nipun Roy Chowdhury, is a politician under the BNP, and also a member of its executive committee. She is married to another political figure, Amitav Roy, the son of senior BNP leader Gayeshwar Chandra Roy.

Chowdhury presently serves as a BNP vice-president, and won from the Magura-2 constituency in the elections that took place on February 12.

A senior adviser to the late Khaleda Zia, he is a senior politician as his career in the parliament began in 1988 when he was elected to the Jatiya Sangsad from his constituency. He has been a voice against the Sheikh Hasina-led Awami League, which was banned from contesting in the elections, claiming that the party was the biggest enemies of Hindus, as per NDTV reports.

During the Hussain Muhammad Ershad government, he served as Minister of Youth and Sports for a short tenure in September 1990. Post the Ershad regime, he joined the BNP and soon became the party's vice-president.

With a victory at the polls, the official count of the nation's first election since Hasina's expulsion gave the BNP and its allies at least 212 of the 299 seats.

Some other members of the cabinet include the party's secretary-general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, the sole woman minister Afroza Khanam Rita, and Dipen Dewan, a Chakma Buddhist leader.