Two Tower Hamlets councillors who planned to stand in Bangladesh’s upcoming election have failed to win their party’s nomination.

Ohid Ahmed, an independent councillor and Sabina Khan, councillor for Aspire, will not be candidates in Bangladesh’s general election in February 2026.

Ms Khan and Mr Ahmed campaigned to be the Bangladesh Nationalist Party’s (BNP) candidate for the Sylhet-6 constituency, but both failed to win the nomination.

Mr Ahmed, speaking to GB News, said he had already decided to resign from Aspire Party leader Lutfur Rahman’s cabinet and did not plan to stand for re-election before deciding to run as a BNP candidate.

Ms Khan said she will also not run for re-election to Tower Hamlets Council and continues to campaign in Bangladesh, regularly posting to her Facebook page Sabina Khan for Golapganj and Beanibazar.

Videos posted on the Facebook page show her speaking to crowds alongside the winning BNP candidate in the constituency, Emran Ahmad Chowdhury.

When GB News asked about Ms Khan’s continued campaigning in Bangladesh, Mr Ahmed said: “I have been here for two months.”

He added: “Me and Sabina are not in the same boat.”

Mr Ahmed told the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) residents in his council ward of Lansbury were his first priority.

He said: “I expressed my interest – long ago I declared that I wasn’t going to stand in the council election.

“So I was trying to go back home where I was born and raised to use my expertise and experience.”

Speaking to Bangladeshi paper the Daily Star, Ms Khan said: “This is not about leaving Tower Hamlets behind — it is about serving the broader Bangladeshi community with the experience I have gained here.”

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Communities Secretary Steve Reed wrote to Tower Hamlets Council and said he was “appalled” to hear London councillors campaigning for office in other countries.

Ms Khan was first elected as a Labour candidate in 2022 but defected to the borough-ruling Aspire Party last year.

She missed more than half of the meetings she had been expected to attend as she had been out of the country.

Mr Ahmed was first elected to represent Labour in 2002, then switched to the Aspire Party, but later quit the party to serve as an independent.

He told the Standard: “I did not miss any of my duties. I did not miss my surgeries. I did not miss anything.

“I take my job seriously. I never, ever do anything to deprive my residents. They are the first priority.”

Tower Hamlets is currently led by Mayor Lutfur Rahman, who was found guilty of illegal election practices in 2014 and banned from running for office for five years, before being re-elected in 2022 after the ban was lifted.

The Government sent Ministerial Envoys to Tower Hamlets Council, following a Best Value Inspection which highlighted failures in political opposition, and a decision-making process limited to a small group around the mayor.

GB News has approached Ms Khan for comment.

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