FACTBOX: Key players in Bangladesh's elections

DHAKA (Reuters) - Bangladesh holds a parliamentary election on Monday aimed at returning the country to democracy after two years of emergency rule by an army-backed interim government.

Following are profiles of the country's four main political parties and their leaders:

AWAMI LEAGUE

Bangladesh's oldest party, the Awami League, was founded in 1948, a year after the Indian sub-continent was divided into Pakistan and India.

It launched a struggle for equal rights and opportunities for people in Urdu-speaking West and Bengali-speaking East Pakistan. The struggle ultimately culminated in a movement for independence that the Bengali nationalists in Pakistan's eastern wing won in December 1971, following support by India in a war.

The Awami League's leader is Sheikh Hasina, 61, the daughter of Bangladesh's founding father and first president, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, killed in an army coup in 1975 along with most of his family. Hasina has put aside her father's socialist economic ideas and gradually adopted market-orientated policies.

She became prime minister in 1996, defeating arch rival Begum Khaleda Zia, but lost to her nemesis in the 2001 elections. She survived an attempt on her life by Islamist militants in August 2004 when grenade blasts killed 23 people at a Dhaka rally.

Arrested in an anti-graft drive by the interim government in July 2007, Hasina was freed on medical parole after spending a year in jail. She is married to a nuclear physicist and has two children.

BANGLADESH NATIONALIST PARTY

The BNP of Begum Khaleda Zia was founded in 1978 by her late husband, President General Ziaur Rahman, with nationalism, Muslim religious values and open market policies as its motto.

After president Zia was killed in an abortive 1981 coup, Khaleda Zia took over the BNP's leadership and became the country's first woman prime minister after winning a 1991 election. The BNP lost to the Awami League in 1996 but Khaleda regained power in 2001.

Khaleda, 63, ended her second five-year term as prime minister in October 2006. Along with her two sons, she was arrested in the anti-corruption drive in September 2007 but was released on bail after a year in prison.

JATIYA PARTY

The Jatiya Party was founded in 1985 by former military ruler Lieutenant-General Hossain Mohammad Ershad, who took power in a bloodless coup in 1982.

Ershad resigned as army chief and was elected president in a controversial vote in 1986, and declared Bangladesh an Islamic state. But he did not implement Islamic values or statutes rigidly, allowing all to practice their own religion.

Ershad, 78, ruled Bangladesh until December 1990 before being ousted in a "people's revolt" led by Hasina and Khaleda Zia. Ershad later launched his own political vehicle, the Jatiya Party. The party is an alliance partner of the Awami League.