British-Bangladeshi former Northampton Town Mayor Rufia Ashraf is the winning candidate for the Labour Party from Northamptonshire at July’s general election.

Monday night ago she talked to Daily Dazzling Dawn. She said, "Difficulty I found today. Tulip Siddique visited Northampton today, a Bangladeshi MP, but the man who organised it only called me two hours before the event to invite me. I was out-of-town canvassing. Me and my sister were the only women there." 

Rufia Ashraf's village home is in Jagannathpur upazila of Sunamganj district. Her husband, Abu Taher Mohammad Ashraf, is the younger brother of Sylhet's former mayor, A. F. M. Kamal. Rufiya Ashraf is the mother of two daughters and one son.

Rufia Ashraf has been a councillor at West Northamptonshire Council since 2021 and currently represents the Dallington Spencer ward in Northampton. She was born and brought up in the town, where she still lives with her family.

Northampton's first female mayor with Bangladeshi heritage said she hoped to inspire others from a similar background.

On the other side, Tulip Rezwana Siddiq, daughter of Bangabandhu's daughter Sheikh Rehana, is a three-term MP from London's Hampstead and Kilburn constituencies. The 41-year-old Tulip is seen by political observers as one of the most promising politicians of the new generation within the Labour Party. In the 2015 election, Tulip won the Labour Party's non-safe seat for the first time in a hotly contested seat. Tulip, who has twice served in the shadow cabinet of the Labour Party, can get her place in the cabinet if she wins the upcoming elections and her own party, the Labour Party, comes to power. 

The contradictions and disunity among the Bangladeshis themselves in the mainstream politics of Britain are totally unacceptable for us.