Dhaka, Dec 30 (NationPress) Khaleda Zia's odyssey -- originating in undivided India and evolving into Bangladesh's inaugural female Prime Minister -- has solidified her status as a key player in the political landscape of this South Asian nation for more than four decades.

Zia, who served as Prime Minister three times and was the Chairperson of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), passed away on Tuesday morning at the age of 80 after battling a long illness.

Transitioning from a relatively private existence, she became the nation's first female Prime Minister and a pivotal figure in its post-independence narrative.

Khaleda Zia was born in 1945 in Jalpaiguri, part of Greater Dinajpur in undivided India. Following the partition of India, her family relocated to what was then East Pakistan.

In 1960, she married Ziaur Rahman, a captain in the Pakistani Army, who later led a revolt against Pakistani forces during the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War.

Rahman ascended to the presidency of Bangladesh in 1977 and established the BNP the subsequent year.

After Ziaur Rahman's assassination on May 30, 1981, the BNP faced a severe crisis, leading senior leaders and party members to encourage Khaleda Zia to take on a leadership role.

She was appointed Vice-President of the party on January 12, 1984, and became the chairperson on May 10 of the same year. She maintained her leadership through successive party councils in 1993, 2009, and 2016, marking nearly 41 years at the helm of the BNP.

After the BNP's victory in the 1991 parliamentary elections, Khaleda Zia was inaugurated as the first female Prime Minister of Bangladesh. She served a second consecutive term following the 1996 national elections, held amid boycotts from major opposition parties, and was sworn in for a third term on October 10, 2001.

Zia's time as Prime Minister coincided with some of the most challenging episodes in India–Bangladesh relations, characterized by animosity and numerous missed strategic opportunities.

In her earlier years, Khaleda Zia adopted a cautious and often adversarial approach towards New Delhi, which influenced bilateral relations for over a decade.

Zia consistently opposed initiatives for overland transit and connectivity with India, both during her tenure as Prime Minister and later as Leader of the Opposition, a role she held on two occasions between 1996 and 2014.

As Prime Minister, she categorically rejected India's request for transit rights through Bangladeshi territory to reach its northeastern states, claiming such agreements would jeopardize Bangladesh's security and sovereignty.

She further argued that the toll-free passage of Indian trucks on Bangladeshi roads amounted to 'slavery'.

Her resistance also extended to diplomatic agreements.

Zia opposed the renewal of the 1972 Indo-Bangladesh Friendship Treaty, deemed significant from a military perspective by strategic experts.

She contended the treaty had 'shackled' Bangladesh and limited its autonomy.

Positioning the BNP as a 'guardian of Bangladesh's interests', Zia frequently portrayed her policies as a defense against what she termed Indian domination.

This rhetoric was still evident years later. At a rally in Dhaka in 2018, while Sheikh Hasina was Prime Minister and Zia was Leader of the Opposition, she criticized Hasina for exempting India from transit duties.

Another significant point of contention during Zia's time was India's Farakka Barrage, operational since 1975, which diverts water from the Ganges into the Hooghly River through a feeder canal.

While the barrage aids in reducing silt, enhancing navigability around Kolkata Port, and supplying fresh water to the city, Zia maintained that it deprived Bangladesh of its rightful share of Ganges water.

In 2007, she accused India of deliberately opening sluice gates to exacerbate flooding in Bangladesh.

Her foreign policy decisions further intensified tensions.

In 2002, Zia actively sought defense cooperation with China.

India perceived this as a direct strategic challenge and reacted by increasing diplomatic pressure, including accusations that the BNP government was harboring separatist groups and terrorists from India's northeastern states.

Zia had previously labeled insurgent groups such as ULFA and NSCN as 'freedom fighters'.

During her leadership, India alleged that anti-India terror organizations operated with impunity from Bangladeshi territory. The 2004 Chittagong arms haul, intended for Indian insurgents, incidents of minority violence in Bangladesh, and the almost total lack of cooperation on counter-terrorism further strained bilateral relations.

Relations between the two neighbors only began to improve after Zia left office.

For over three decades, the political arena in Bangladesh was dominated by two women -- Khaleda Zia and Awami League leader Sheikh Hasina.

Following the Sheikh Hasina-led government assuming power in 2009, Zia rekindled her so-called struggle for democracy.

She was removed from her residence and placed under house arrest on two occasions during protests she initiated against the government. In 2011, she gained international recognition when New Jersey's State Senate honored her as a 'Fighter for Democracy'.

Khaleda Zia was sentenced to five years' imprisonment by a special court in Dhaka on February 8, 2018, in the Zia Orphanage Trust corruption case.

Her sentence was suspended on March 25, 2020, when the then Awami League government temporarily released her through an executive order amid the Covid-19 pandemic, with the condition that she stay in her Gulshan home and not leave the country.

She was fully released on August 6, 2024, after President Mohammed Shahabuddin granted her an exemption from the sentence under presidential powers.

Khaleda Zia returned to Dhaka this May after spending four months receiving medical treatment in London.

She had been admitted to a private hospital in Dhaka on November 23 after developing serious complications related to her heart and lungs, remaining under close medical observation before her demise on Tuesday.

She is survived by her elder son, BNP acting chairman Tarique Rahman, his wife Zubaida Rahman, and their daughter Zaima Rahman.

Tarique Rahman returned to Bangladesh on December 25 after spending 17 years in self-imposed exile. Her younger son, Arafat Rahman Koko, passed away several years ago in Malaysia.