Tulip Siddiq on her first visit to Bangladesh as a British MP

Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s granddaughter Tulip Siddiq has arrived on her first visit to Bangladesh after being elected a British MP.

The daughter of Sheikh Rehana, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s sister, was elected a Labour Party MP in UK’s parliamentary elections in May this year from the Hampstead and Kilburn constituency.

The Biman Bangladesh flight carrying her landed at Dhaka’s Shahjalal International Airport at 12:45pm on Sunday after a brief stopover in Sylhet.

Accompanied by her husband Chris Percy, she went straight to her brother Radwan Mujib Siddiq’s residence from the airport.

She is scheduled to meet her aunt Hasina at the Ganabhaban in the afternoon.

During an hour’s halt at the Sylhet airport, she met a delegation of local Awami League leaders. Rehana was there too.

One of the three Labour MPs of Bangladeshi origins, Siddiq was confident that Bengali men, too, would soon make it to the House of Commons.

Her visit was an expression of gratitude for the support she had got from the expatriate Bangladeshi community, especially those from the Sylhet region, she said.

On the anti-Muslim comments by US Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, she said she had drawn British Prime Minister David Cameron’s attention in order to preclude anything similar happening in the UK.

Prof Aminul Haque Bhuiyan, vice chancellor of Shahjalal University of Science and Technology, local lawmakers Ehiya Chowdhury and Shahana Rabbani, and Badar Uddin Ahmed Kamran, president of the Sylhet Metropolitan chapter of the Awami League, among others, were present there.

Widely dubbed as an emerging star of the Labour Party, Tulip was appointed Permanent Private Secretary to Michael Dugher, shadow minister for culture, media and sport.

She is also a member of the Women and Equalities Select Committee of British parliament.

Tulip married Chris Percy, full name Christian William St John Percy, in 2013.