After the August 1975 coup, the party was forced by subsequent military regimes onto the political sidelines, and many of its senior leaders and activists were executed or jailed.

Prominent student leaders including Shamsul Huq, Khaleque Nawaz Khan, Shawkat Ali, Kazi Golam Mahboob, Oli Ahad, and Abdul Wahed were arrested and the police were accused of repression while charging protesters.

[26] Amidst the rising discontent in East Bengal, Jinnah visited Dhaka and announced that Urdu would be the sole state language of Pakistan given its significance to Islamic nationalism in South Asia.

[27] The announcement caused an emotional uproar in East Bengal, where the native Bengali population resented Jinnah for his attempts to impose a language they hardly understood on the basis of upholding unity.

In the run-up to the 1954 East Bengal Legislative Assembly election, the Awami League took the lead in negotiations in forming a pan-Bangla political alliance including the Krishak Praja Party, Nizam-e-Islam and Ganatantri Dal.

Veteran student leader and language movement stalwart Khaleque Nawaz Khan defeated incumbent prime minister of the then East Bengali Nurul Amin in a landslide margin.

Khaleque Nawaz Khan created history at age 27 by defeating the sitting prime minister and the Muslim League was wiped from the political landscape of the then East Pakistan.

A. K. Fazlul Huq assumed the office of Chief Minister of East Bengal and drew up a cabinet containing many of the prominent student activists that were leading movements against the Pakistani state.

[33] As tensions with the western wing grew due to the demands for greater provincial autonomy in East Bengal, Governor-General Ghulam Muhammad dismissed the United Front government on 29 May 1954 under Article 92/A of the provisional constitution of Pakistan.

[31] In September 1956, the Awami League formed a coalition with the Republican Party to secure a majority in the new National Assembly of Pakistan and took over the central government.

Suhrawardy pursued a reform agenda to reduce the long-standing economic disparity between East and West Pakistan, greater representation of Bengalis in the Pakistani civil and armed services and he unsuccessfully attempted to alleviate the food shortage in the country.

Maulana Bhashani, one of the party's founders, condemned the decision of the Suhrawardy government and called a conference in February 1957 at Kagmari, Tangail in East Bengal.

Many in the business elite in Karachi were lobbying against Suhrawardy's decision to distribute millions of dollars of American aid to East Pakistan and to set up a national shipping corporation.

Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy joined Nurul Amin, Khwaja Nazimuddin, Maulvi Farid Ahmed and Hamidul Haq Chowdhury in forming the National Democratic Front against Ayub Khan's military-backed rule and to restore elective democracy.

After the so-called Agartala Conspiracy Case, and subsequent end of the Ayub Khan's regime in Pakistan, the Awami League and its leader Sheikh Mujib reached the peak of their popularity among the East Pakistani Bengali population.

In January 1975, facing violent leftist insurgents Mujib declared a state of emergency and later assumed the presidency, after the Awami League dominated parliament decided to switch from parliamentary to a presidential form of government.

The move towards a secular form of government caused widespread dissatisfaction among many low ranking military personnel, most of whom received training from the Pakistani army.

Within months, on 3 November 1975, four more of its top leaders, Syed Nazrul Islam, Tajuddin Ahmed, Muhammad Mansur Ali and A. H. M. Qamaruzzaman were killed inside the Dhaka Central Jail as they were on behalf of BAKSAL.

It also had significant achievements in containing inflation, and peacefully neutralising a long-running leftist insurgency in south-western districts dating back to the first AL government's time.

Finally, the party's electoral secretary, ex finance minister, and veteran diplomat Shah M S Kibria, a member of parliament from Habiganj, was killed in a grenade attack in Sylhet later that year.

Mohiuddin Chowdhury won the important mayoral election in Chittagong, by a huge margin, against BNP nominee State Minister of Aviation Mir Mohammad Nasiruddin.

Starting in late October 2006, the Awami League led alliance carried out a series of nationwide demonstrations and blockades centring on the selection of the leader of the interim caretaker administration to oversee the 2007 elections.

Since 2009, the Awami League government faced several major political challenges, including BDR (Bangladesh Rifles) mutiny,[46] power crisis,[47] unrest in garments industry[48] and stock market fluctuations.

Then the Appellate Division imposed a stay on the ruling but protesters continued to carry on their movement unless the government agreed to their demands of taking a firm step for reforming the quota system.

[88] Since the 2010s, AL government has been very pro-market "which focused on boosting exports, attracting foreign investment, improving infrastructure, diversifying the economy, and enhancing the business environment.

The Central Working Committee (Bengali: কেন্দ্রীয় কার্যনির্বাহী সংসদ, romanized: Kēndrīẏa kāryanirbāhī sansada) of the Awami League is a political body that comprises the top leaders of the Party.

[141] In a 2021 report Human Rights Watch said that in government the party has "doubled down on an authoritarian crackdown on free speech, arresting critics, and censoring media.

[148][149] Jatiya Rakkhi Bahini, dissolved armed wing of Awami League, formed under the supervision of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and active from 1972 to 1975, became involved in numerous charges of political killings, shooting by death squads, and rape.

Human Rights Watch states that institutionalized violence committed by the Jatiya Rakkhi Bahini, established the culture of impunity and widespread prevalence of abuses by security forces in independent Bangladesh.

Critiques argue that this type of self-proclaimed interpretation of Bangladesh Liberation War results in an illiberal socio-political landscape in the country that marginalizes the opposition.