Movement against autocracy

While living in self-exile in India, Sheikh Hasina was elected the president of Bangladesh Awami League in 1981. After she returned to the country, the president Ziaur Rahman was assassinated in yet another coup in May, 1981. The following year, General Hossain Mohammad Ershad captured power through a bloodless coup and declared martial law. In 1983, Hasina formed the 15-party alliance to launch a movement to oust him from power. She was in and out of prison throughout the 1980s. Her party, along with the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, led by Rahman's widow Khaleda Zia, was instrumental in the movement against the military rule. In 1984, Hasina was put under house arrest in February and then again in November. In March 1985, she was put under house arrest for three months.
In 1990, Hasina's 8 party alliance was instrumental along with another BNP-led alliance in finally removing the Ershad regime.
Under the leadership of Sheikh Hasina, Awami League formed an alliance with Ershad's Jayiya Party in 2006.