She served as prime minister from 1996 to 2001, and again from 2009 to 2024.As Bangladesh’s longest-ruling prime minister, Hasina’s return raises the prospect of renewed legal and political issues in the country of 127 million people.She still enjoys support among sections of the population, and her return could impact the Bangladeshi government’s efforts to stabilise the country and its economy after two years of disruption.However, her return to Bangladesh could smooth relations with India, which sharply deteriorated when the former prime minister fled there in 2024.Hasina was ousted by a popular, student-led mass protest movement that broke out after the Supreme Court restored a job quota system that had prioritised the descendants of the country’s liberation activists.