FIRM ROOTS

Gopalganj is Sheikh Hasina's home, and fortress

- MANDIRA NAYAR

MAN MATHA NATH Podder's Nautica sneakers betray his Big Apple street cred. He is quite well off—in New York, he lives in a condo, not an apartment. “I would rather stay here,” says Podder, who came back to Bangladesh just to vote.

“In Gopalganj, we are mad for Sheikh Hasina,” he asserts. Podder was a schoolteacher and the Awami League upazila chairman for years. He remembers 1971, the fight for freedom, and the devastation of the death of Sheikh Mujib three and a half years later.

For Podder, this election is personal. “We remember the times when the Bangladesh Nationalist Party was in power,” he says. “Khaleda Zia tortured Hindus; our women were raped, our houses burnt and our land seized.” Especially in Gopalganj 3, a constituency with the largest presence of Hindus, a vote for Hasina is also a vote against this threat.