Bangladesh's warring power couple to battle it out at polls

DHAKA, Sunday (AFP) - Bangladesh's most famous warring couple, former military ruler Hussain Muhammad Ershad and his glamorous ex-wife will battle it out at the ballot box after Bidisha said she would campaign against her former husband in parliamentary polls.

Bangladeshis have been riveted by the saga of the 77-year-old Ershad and Bidisha, 38, whose marriage collapse and public feuding have received wall-to-wall media coverage.

Now Bidisha, a one-time owner of an upmarket boutique, said she and rebels from her former husband's centrist opposition Jatiya Party have launched a new party and will campaign against him on the election trail.

"I'm very much part of the new party," Bidisha told AFP, adding its name and policies would be announced February 28 at a convention.

"I've been in politics for the last four years and will remain so. I will compete against Ershad in every parliamentary seat he competes in during the next elections" due in January 2007.

Bidisha, who goes by one name, was arrested by police last June after her husband accused her of theft, criminal damage, forgery, bigamy, threats to kill him and money laundering.

"He has called me a thief and handed me over to police. I won't let Ershad off the hook so easily," Bidisha told the mass-circulation Bengali daily Samakal in an interview published Saturday.

Bidisha also said she was writing a biography in Bengali and English, detailing her days in police custody, her love affair and subsequent five-year marriage to the former military strongman.

"I married him after a love affair and spent five years with him. I travelled across the country to make his party strong. Yet, in reply he sent me to jail," she said.