It was founded on 1 September 1978 by former Bangladesh President Ziaur Rahman after the Presidential election of 1978, with a view to uniting the people with nationalist ideology of the country. Ideology:
The party holds the ideology of Bangladeshi nationalism as its core concept and adopted a 19-point program which declared that "The sovereignty and independence of Bangladesh, golden fruits of
the historic liberation struggle, is our sacred trust and inviolable right". The founding manifesto of the BNP claims that the people of Bangladesh want to "...see that all-out faith and confidence in the almighty Allah, democracy, nationalism and socialism of social and economic justice are reflected in all spheres of national life". BNP and its student wing was the driving force in the 1990 uprising against the autocratic Ershad rule that culminated in the fall of the regime and the restoration of democracy in Bangladesh. Begum Khaleda Zia, who served as the party's chairperson from 1983, was elected as the first woman Prime Minister of Bangladesh. Begum Khaleda Zia is the chairperson of the party, with Tarique Rahman as the senior vice-chairman and Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir as the secretary-general. And since 9 February, 2018 Tarique Rahman is the acting chairman of the party.
